Recover all files from old tapes

[daytrippin]

Hi,

I've been given the task of retrieving all the old data from a large number of backup tapes which were created via Networker ver 4.2.5 running on an IRIX box. These tapes are between 4 and 10 years old and I have no experience of Networker!

Using 'save set recover' I can see the save sets and find the details and the appropriate tape/volume name. These backups all have the status - recyclable. I mount the correct tape that I need, click recover and then start.

I get a message in the status window that the recover has started but 4 seconds later a new status line reports that the recover has ended.

In the deamon log the following message appears - session start failed for server lurch-f0 error 2. Does anyone know what is going wrong??

I want to get all files off of all the tapes, I don't care which path they came from or are going to. Is there an easier / quicker way of recovering everything of each tape in the jukebox without scanning or going through indexes?

Any help would be very welcome,
thanks, nick.

 

[605]

No. When you have missing info in the index (at least the media index), you must scan the media.

However, you may directly recover while scanning - just pipe the scan output through the uasm command. Look at Tech Bulletin 001 for an example.


However, don't forget that it might be the case that tapes have lost their info over the years.

 

[daytrippin]

Thanks for the help 605.

Is this the Tech Bulletin you mention or is there one on this site?

http://portal2.legato.com/resources/bulletins/001.html#recycle

I have tried to recover some data by running the following command, without fully understanding the uasm switches!

scanner -s ssid /dev/rmt/tps47d6nrnsv | uasm -rv -i r -m /output

This has reocvered some but not all the files from the save set, scanner reported 97 files in the save set but only recovered about 15 and put the files back to their original path.

Do I have to scan the tapes to get the ssid before I can recover or can I run the command to recover all files from all ssid's on the tape? I have scanned a tape to get all the ssid's before but this takes 2 hours or so, and when I have so many tapes, over 300, this isn't really an option.

Thanks again, Nick.

 

[605]

If you need to do it per save set, then you must have the ssid, of course. But there is no other way.

Don't know why it only recover part of it. If you have the ssid already (which i did not remember), then of course you can just use the save set recovery and relocate the whole save set to a temp directory.

 

[daytrippin]

OK,

I've found a way to recover all data from all save sets on the tape as we go...

scanner -c clientname /dev/rmt/tps47d6nrnsv -x uasm -rv

This is working at the moment but it was using a tape that exists in the index, about two thirds of the tapes are not indexed so we'll see if they work too.

This is OK when I load one tape manually but does anyone know how I can recover this way and utilise the jukebox?

Thanks, Nick.

 

[Serbtastic]

Scanner is not a jukebox aware application, so you will need to manually load each tape into the tape drive before using it.

 

[daytrippin]

Thanks for the help, only another 997 tapes to go.....

 

[605]

Just keep in mind that scanner's main purpose is to add UNKNOWN media. This of course can not be managed automatically as long it has not been added to the media index. However, you can use sjimm to load/unload the media.