error: waiting for two writable vols -but wont mount

[jpdar]

First please forgive me for being very new to Networker.

I am getting a message "media waiting: waiting for two writable volumes to backup pool 'Default' tapes on server_a"
I do not have new tapes to use, so I am going to erase some already in the changer.
I have changed the volumes from append mode to recyclable mode and i have changed my clients from a retention of one year to one month... i didnt set it up
.
I have tried to reset the tapes with the label operation (hoping this would reset the mode so legato would see that the tapes are recycable) --with no luck (The tapes are labeled via barcode)

I am attempting to mount the tapes and run the erase utility on them
i.e "erase -rs -a 1.1.0"

but since I cannot mount the tape I am unsuccessful

When I go to mount a tape I get a message saying "withdraw in progress"
This has been the message for over an hour now..
.before I made the mistake of hitting the withdraw operation, it still wouldn't mount successfully (although it would at least attempt to try)

Am I way off base?
Thanks in advance,. jon

 

[bigkatt]

Jon,
Is this an NT box or UNIX? What type of drives? I am not sure how many tapes your jukebox holds but I would run the following command to find out which tape has the oldest access time.
mminfo -av -r 'volume,volaccess,location' -q 'location=YOURJUKEBOXNAME,volaccess < 05/29/01,pool=DEFAULT,full'

This is looking for full tape that have not been accessed since 05/29/01.
You may want to stop all backups, remove the tapes and look at them. Do you know that any data has been saved to the tape? Do they currently have labels? If you shutdown NetWorker can you mount the tape by hand? If you can mount them you can try to run

mt -f /dev/rmt/0cbn status

to find out if you can get any information from the tape. Let me know if I can help you any further.

Good Luck,
BK

PS: You are on the right track!

 

[bigkatt]

Jon,
On the mminfo command make sure you spell DEFAULT the same way it is setup in Legato, Default.

BK

 

[ag100]

Hey,

You have a few options.. To mark a tape recyclable, type: nsrmm -y -o recyclable volume_name1 volume_name2 Please note: If you don't put the -y in the command, it will prompt you to confirm the operation.

Also keep in mind, you should be able to label the tapes in the jukebox regardless of whether they're barcoded or not.. To have the volume label match the barcode when labeling tapes:

Bring up the GUI, under Media --> Jukebox, make sure the &quot;Match Bar code Labels&quot; is set to &quot;Yes&quot;.

If you continue to have problems, let me know..

Good Luck!

-ag100

 

[jpdar]

Thanks bigkatt and ag100,

I'm on an NT box and we have a Compaq DLT Tape Library (dlt4 tapes).

I have rebooted the machine and that seemed to have cleared up some things. Networker was hung on a withdraw operation. Now it allows me to try to mount a tape through the gui screen---but it &quot;cannot find usable cleaning slot&quot;.

We currently have one cleaning tape that has &quot;-4 uses left&quot;.
I am assuming our sole cleaning tape has expired..and I am wondering if there is a way to workaround this until we are able to buy cleaning tapes.

 

[bigkatt]

Jon,
I am thinking that you might be able to turn off auto cleaning. On a unix box you can do this by going to media, jukebox and select 'no' for auto clean. This might get you around the cleaning tape problem for now.

BK

 

[jpdar]

Thanks bigkatt---all is good!