Forum Discussion

steve02aa's avatar
steve02aa
Level 3
13 years ago

please insert overwritable media

I am using backup exec 12.5 Rev 2231 on a Windows SBS 2003 SP2 server (x86).

I run a backup every night - changing out tapes (Monday through Friday).

Recently, I have been getting "please insert over-writable media" on every nightly backup.

Today, for my Thursday night backup, (before the backup was to run), I reformatted the tape.  No data at all on the tape.  The backup starts, runs, gets to 100%, then starts popping up alerts of "please insert over-writable media."

Could this be related to - the tape has reached it capacity (80GB) and needs another tape to finish the backup (maybe I'm trying to backup 100GB on an 80GB tape) or could it be the previous media sets are interfering w/the backup that is running (but not sure how that could happen since the tape is blank).  Thus far, this has happened on my Monday, Tue, Wed, and now Thur (and I'm sure it'll happen on my Friday night backup).

The media set I created (a while ago) is set to:

Overwrite protection period:  1 day
Append Period:  4 weeks

I was always under the impression - for example, my Monday would get the 1st Monday of the month, then 2nd Monday of the month - and when the 3rd Monday came around, it would overwrite the 1st Monday (then my tape would have 2nd Monday and 3rd Monday) and so on and so on.  It's been working like that for about a 1 to 1.5 years now with no issues.  Now I just get the "please insert over-writable media" alert constantly, and I end up canceling the backup job.

Any thoughts on this?  If you need more information, please let me know.

Thank you.

Steve

12.x and Earlier
Backing Up
Backup and Recovery
Backup Exec
Error messages
  • steve02aa's avatar
    steve02aa
    13 years ago

    I did some poking around and discovered my system volume information folder was hogging up about 70GB and it had about 4 months worth of files in there.  I reduced that folder to about 16GB and adjusted some settings for VSS.  This folder is included in my backup job and it was causing me to (try to) backup about 140-15GB on an 80GB tape.  That won't work.  Since reducing that folder, my backup will be around 82GB which will fit on an 80GB tape w/compression.

  • VJware's avatar
    VJware
    Level 6
    13 years ago

    Have you looked at - http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH60486 ?

  • steve02aa's avatar
    steve02aa
    Level 3
    13 years ago

    What report can I run to see how much data I'm backing up - maybe I am backing up too much for the tape to hold and it wants tape #2 (which I don't have).

  • VJware's avatar
    VJware
    Level 6
    13 years ago

    Its to help you get started...this alert occurs due to 2 common reasons..either the tape capacity is full & requires additonal tapes or if the media protection on the tapes prevents further overwrite...

  • steve02aa's avatar
    steve02aa
    Level 3
    13 years ago

    Can't see how media protection would protect me..the tapes are blank.

  • pkh's avatar
    pkh
    Moderator
    13 years ago

    If you managed to backup about 100GB on a 80GB tape, then your compression ratio is about 1.25:1 which is about what is expected.  Your tape is full and it has nothing to do with your OPP.

    You need to get higher capacity tape and tape drives, or live with having to slot in a second tape for the backup to complete.  Make sure that you second tape is overwriteable.

    If you want to know how much data is actually backed up, then you would need to put in a second tape for the job to complete.  The joblog would have the information that you require.

  • Sush---'s avatar
    Sush---
    Level 6
    13 years ago

    Also the Byte count shown during the Active job will give you the information about how much data is backed up till the Job throws alerts to insert new tape.

     

    Thanks,

    -Sush...

  • steve02aa's avatar
    steve02aa
    Level 3
    13 years ago

    I did some poking around and discovered my system volume information folder was hogging up about 70GB and it had about 4 months worth of files in there.  I reduced that folder to about 16GB and adjusted some settings for VSS.  This folder is included in my backup job and it was causing me to (try to) backup about 140-15GB on an 80GB tape.  That won't work.  Since reducing that folder, my backup will be around 82GB which will fit on an 80GB tape w/compression.