Labelling media

[alfie1noakes]

My problem is this, I have been using two tapes for the last couple of weeks to carry out a full and incremental backup. The tapes are media labelled as 0127 and 0128 respectively.

The second tape, 0128, has been taking the incremental backups, and these are appended to the end of the tape, dependant on the overwrite protection period.

Over the weekend, one of the tapes hit capacity, and the append period meant that the tape was kicked out of the machine. I noticed this today, and realised that if i put the tape back in the machine, that the overwrite period should now allow it to backup on the tape, 0128.

The incremental backup completed, no problems on tape 0128. Since this point, I have needed to restore some data from tape 0128. So I found the data in the restore tab, and proceeded to try and restore the information.

The software then told me to insert media labelled 0128, but this was the tape that was already in there.

When I checked through the latest incremental backup carried out this morning, it appears that when I reinserted tape 0128, it relabelled it to 0129, and I can now not get the info off of it!!

I have tried renaming the media, but that is all it does, renames it. If I try and re label it, it tells me I will lose all data on the tape.

Help!! How can I get back the info that was stored as 0128, but is now showing as 0129??

Sorry its so long, but I had to tell someone!!

Andy

 

[justin2000]

You can't get the data off it - it sounds like the tape has been overwritten and now is label 129.

The media set this tape is currently in - what are it's append and overwrite protection levels?

It sounds like the tape got full on a backup job, and the next one it has overwritten it.
What have you specified for the job - append, terminate if no appendable media found - or append, overwrite if no appendable media found?

Renaming won't do anything - neither will relabelling it as you have seen.
Backup exec doesn't really care about the label when asking for a tape - it is looking specifically at the GUID of the tape - a new GUID is written when the tape is overwritten.

Why have you only got 2 tapes anyway? what would happen if the place burns down with the tapes inside it, how would you get your data back?

 

[alfie1noakes]

Don't worry, I'm sure you are not, but that is the other part of the story I didn't mention.

We currently use an Auto loader (sony) which rotates 7 tapes plus a cleaner. It is in the menders at the moment (again) after chewing yet another set of tapes up.

So, I am on emergency backups at the minute using a single loader. Which is why we are on emergency incrementals. There are two tapes, and the fully backed up one is in the safe.

Anyway... its set to append to media, overwrite if no appendable media is available.

But surely it must know that I have put in tape 0128, and that it must overwrite a portion of the tape, not to overwrite all 20Gb of data, just to backup 200Mb!!!

Andy

 

[SQLBill]

Nope. Overwrite is for the whole tape. That's why BE won't accept a tape that has a part of the backup already on it.

Example: A 100GB tape. 90Gb is used and you are trying to backup a 20GB db. It will put 10 GB on the tape and then demand a new tape for the final 10GB. It will NOT put the last 10GB on the beginning of the same tape.

-SQLBill

 

[alfie1noakes]

Bugger!

Thanks for your input guys!!

Andy