VMware Backup of Windows VM with NTFS Volumes is Successful but does not show Files and Folders for recovery

Problem

VMware Backup of Windows VM with NTFS Volumes is Successful but does not show Files and Folders for recovery

Error Message

VxMS Logs:

03/16/2022 17:30:58 : fixUpdateSequenceArray:RvpNtfsFileSystem.cpp:1500 : ntfsRecord-Type 140721436841537
03/16/2022 17:30:58 : log:Error.cpp:249 : Error: 0x0000080A occured in file /nbcm_builds/NB/9.1.0.1/src/vxms/plugin/common/map_v2/pv_ntfs/NtfsMftCache.cpp, at line 91
03/16/2022 17:30:58 : log:Error.cpp:249 : Error: 0x0000080A occured in file /nbcm_builds/NB/9.1.0.1/src/vxms/plugin/common/map_v2/pv_ntfs/NtfsMftCache.cpp, at line 91
03/16/2022 17:30:58 : openId:RvpNtfsFileSystemMgr.cpp:272 : Invalid NTFS object
03/16/2022 17:30:58 : openId:RvpNtfsFileSystemMgr.cpp:297 : Returning: 3
03/16/2022 17:30:58 : rvpMapOpenId:RvpNtfsCoordinator.cpp:703 : Returning: 3
03/16/2022 17:30:58 : rvp_map_open_id:libfs_ntfs.cpp:526 : Returning: 3
03/16/2022 17:30:58 : loadFileSystem:RvpWinFileSystem.cpp:330 : Unable to open volume: H:
...
03/16/2022 17:30:58 : plugin_report_claim:LogHelper.h:154 : Return VF_CLAIM_NONE for: H:
03/16/2022 17:30:58 : loadFileSystem:RvpWinFileSystem.cpp:334 : Volume not claimed: H:
03/16/2022 17:30:58 : saveVolume:RvpWinFileSystemMgr.cpp:3004 : Skipping unsupported volume: H:

Cause

It was found that this is a Windows 2019 VM which had a NTFS Volume formatted with allocation unit size of 512K.  Support for larger than 64K NTFS Allocation was introduced at Windows 2019.

This can be verified by looking at "Bytes Per Cluster" value in the output of below fsutil command:

C:\>fsutil fsinfo ntfsinfo h:
NTFS Volume Serial Number :        0xxxx6
NTFS Version   :                   3.1
LFS Version    :                   2.0
Number Sectors :                   0x00000000257f6fff
Total Clusters :                   0x0000000000095fdb
Free Clusters  :                   0x000000000007deae
Total Reserved :                   0x0000000000000018
Bytes Per Sector  :                512
Bytes Per Physical Sector :        512
Bytes Per Cluster :                524288

Solution

File and Folder recovery is not supported for NTFS Volumes formatted with 512K allocation unit size with current release of NetBackup (9.1.0.1)

File and Folder recovery would be possible by re-formatting the volume using a lower allocation unit size like 64K or the Default allocation unit supported by Microsoft

Support for larger NTFS allocation sizes would be considered for later product release, but keep in mind that the VMware VMDK disk size limits currently supported make larger NTFS Allocations unnecessary.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Formatting the volume will erase all data on it. All data on the Volume has to be backed up before formatting it.