Here's what I do to create a local backup (into my g: drive) of a database
that is on server 'duck':

..> cd c:\Progra~1\Firebird\bin
..> gbak -b duck:\data\myDb.fdb g:\db_backups\myDb.fbk user sysdba
-password masterkey

heLen
I notice that you are calling this gbak from your firebird bin directory. I
have tried it on a machine where no server is installed and I have to
conclude that this is not possible when the client machine does not have a
server installed on it. If it just has the client lib and gbak. I remember
back in the version 3-4 days when the DBAdmin GUI would allow this but it
was definitely only an available option when you connected to the local
server as well as the remote server.

I've also tried (from a client) using the IBBackupService and this too does
not allow backups to a local file.

Am I missing something? IS there no way of doing a backup from a client to
it's (client) filesystem?
Alan