Backup Exec 2010 R3 Media Mount Failed

The byte count as shown by the job history does not reflect what ends up on the tape.  You should click on the tape in the Media tab and from the tape statistics you would be able to see what is actually written onto the tape.

If you are not appending to the tape, check that your job properties specify Overwrite.

I would suggest that you temporarily remove the time limit for your job and put in a second tape if required.  When you job is complete, click on the tape and check the tape statistics to see what is actually written on to the tape.  You might want to post the screenshot of the lower right hand panel when you click on the tape.  Don't use imageshack.  Attach the screenshot directly using the File attachments link, just above the Save button.

Hi there,

Thanks for the reply. When clicking on the tape on the media tab, I see that it is indeed full (195.3GB of 195.8GB). I am still getting used to this software.

So I guess now I need to find out why it didn't overwrite the tape, I assume it has appended to it from last weeks backup and has now hit a limit (they definately have under 100GB of data that is backed up).

If you don't want to append to your tapes, then you can either change the AP of the media set that they belong to or your job property.

Yeah we don't, we just want full complete backups every night and that to be the only thing on the tape.

Under the job properties I already had:

Device and Media -> Overwrite media ticked

And under Tools -> option in Backup Exec:

Job Defaults -> Backup -> Media overwrite protection = Overwrite media

Media Management -> Overwrite Protection level = None

I'm not sure what other settings there are to check really?

Your Overwrite Protectioin Level should be set to at least Partial.  Otherwise, your OPP and AP would not work.

AP and OPP is part of your media set properties.  Click on the media set in the Media tab to set these.  You should set an appropriate period for your OP so that your data do not get inadvertently overwritten.

I thought if I set the Overwrite Protection Level to None then any media can be overwritten and the properties of the media set don't really matter?

I have a similar setup at other clients and it works fine. Both AP and OPP on the media set are infinite.

I don't see why it shouldn't work?

You are right in that with Overwrite Protection Level set to None any media can be overwritten, but is that what you want, i.e., you are opening yourself to inadvertently overwriting your media.  Suppose you want to insert Tape1, but you accidentally insert Tape2 which is meant to be kept.  BE will just happily overwrite Tape2.

There is nothing to say that you must use the overwrite protection facility in BE, but manual control means that human errors can occur.  Also, if you don't understand and get comfortable with setting OPP and AP, then you are going to find it very difficult to upgrade to a tape library.

I do understand what the OPL set to none means and it opens the gap for human error. We are aware of this risk.

Any idea why it is not happily overwriting the tapes and is appending?

I have not tried OPL = None and would never use this setting, so I cannot tell you what kind of behaviour you  would get.