diff --git a/system/database/drivers/mysql/mysql_forge.php b/system/database/drivers/mysql/mysql_forge.php
index d310713..0f251b0 100644
--- a/system/database/drivers/mysql/mysql_forge.php
+++ b/system/database/drivers/mysql/mysql_forge.php
@@ -147,7 +147,7 @@
 			$sql .= 'IF NOT EXISTS ';
 		}
 
-		$sql .= $this->db->_escape_identifiers($table).' ('.$this->_process_fields($fields);
+		$sql .= $this->db->protect_identifiers($table).' ('.$this->_process_fields($fields);
 
 		if (count($primary_keys) > 0)
 		{
@@ -187,7 +187,7 @@
 	 */
 	public function _drop_table($table)
 	{
-		return 'DROP TABLE IF EXISTS '.$this->db->_escape_identifiers($table);
+		return 'DROP TABLE IF EXISTS '.$this->db->protect_identifiers($table);
 	}
 
 	// --------------------------------------------------------------------
diff --git a/system/database/drivers/mysql/mysql_utility.php b/system/database/drivers/mysql/mysql_utility.php
index 0e7c18e..538aaa0 100644
--- a/system/database/drivers/mysql/mysql_utility.php
+++ b/system/database/drivers/mysql/mysql_utility.php
@@ -56,7 +56,7 @@
 	 */
 	public function _optimize_table($table)
 	{
-		return 'OPTIMIZE TABLE '.$this->db->_escape_identifiers($table);
+		return 'OPTIMIZE TABLE '.$this->db->protect_identifiers($table);
 	}
 
 	// --------------------------------------------------------------------
@@ -71,7 +71,7 @@
 	 */
 	public function _repair_table($table)
 	{
-		return 'REPAIR TABLE '.$this->db->_escape_identifiers($table);
+		return 'REPAIR TABLE '.$this->db->protect_identifiers($table);
 	}
 
 	// --------------------------------------------------------------------
@@ -102,7 +102,7 @@
 			}
 
 			// Get the table schema
-			$query = $this->db->query('SHOW CREATE TABLE `'.$this->db->database.'`.`'.$table.'`');
+			$query = $this->db->query('SHOW CREATE TABLE '.$this->db->protect_identifiers($this->db->database).'.'.$this->db->protect_identifiers($table));
 
 			// No result means the table name was invalid
 			if ($query === FALSE)
@@ -115,7 +115,7 @@
 
 			if ($add_drop == TRUE)
 			{
-				$output .= 'DROP TABLE IF EXISTS '.$table.';'.$newline.$newline;
+				$output .= 'DROP TABLE IF EXISTS '.($this->db->protect_identifiers($table).';'.$newline.$newline;
 			}
 
 			$i = 0;
@@ -135,7 +135,7 @@
 			}
 
 			// Grab all the data from the current table
-			$query = $this->db->query('SELECT * FROM '.$table);
+			$query = $this->db->query('SELECT * FROM '.$this->db->protect_identifiers($table));
 
 			if ($query->num_rows() == 0)
 			{
@@ -157,7 +157,7 @@
 							TRUE);
 
 				// Create a string of field names
-				$field_str .= '`'.$field->name.'`, ';
+				$field_str .= $this->db->protect_identifiers($field->name).', ';
 				$i++;
 			}
 
@@ -192,7 +192,7 @@
 				$val_str = preg_replace('/, $/' , '', $val_str);
 
 				// Build the INSERT string
-				$output .= 'INSERT INTO '.$table.' ('.$field_str.') VALUES ('.$val_str.');'.$newline;
+				$output .= 'INSERT INTO '.$this->db->protect_identifiers($table).' ('.$field_str.') VALUES ('.$val_str.');'.$newline;
 			}
 
 			return $output.$newline.$newline;
@@ -200,6 +200,7 @@
 
 		return $output;
 	}
+
 }
 
 /* End of file mysql_utility.php */
diff --git a/user_guide_src/source/changelog.rst b/user_guide_src/source/changelog.rst
index faea358..a4904fc 100644
--- a/user_guide_src/source/changelog.rst
+++ b/user_guide_src/source/changelog.rst
@@ -105,6 +105,7 @@
 -  Fixed a hosting edge case where an empty $_SERVER['HTTPS'] variable would evaluate to 'on'
 -  Fixed a bug (#154) - ``CI_Session::sess_update()`` caused the session to be destroyed on pages where multiple AJAX requests were executed at once.
 -  Fixed a possible bug in ``CI_Input::is_ajax_request()`` where some clients might not send the X-Requested-With HTTP header value exactly as 'XmlHttpRequest'.
+-  Fixed a bug (#1039) - MySQL's _backup() method failed due to a table name not being escaped.
 
 Version 2.1.0
 =============