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dori_bashan's avatar
dori_bashan
Level 6
9 years ago

Restore data when one tape is missing from the set

Hello

about a year ago, we created a One-Time-Backup job to backup 10TB of data to LTO 5.

the job used several tapes of course.

We have lost one of the tapes in the set.

Now, we need to restore some data from this backup, and to understand what data is not recoverable beacuse of the lost tape.

i am trying to understand which data is on which tape and cannot figure this out.

Looking inside Storage - Media Sets - and double clicking on the tapes to get to the "Backup Sets", it seems that when i look on each tape, i see all the content of the entire backup, instead of seeing what is on each tape.

i have tried to Catalog all the tapes (after clearing the "Request all media for catalog operations) but it didn't seem to help.

We just want to understand what data is located on which tape to undertsand what data we lost beacuse of the lost tape.

Thanks

15
Windows Server (2003/2008)

6 Replies

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  • pkh's avatar
    pkh
    Moderator
    9 years ago

    There is no way to get the information you want.  You just have to try your luck and do a restore.  If the information is on the missing tape, you would be prompted for the tape and you would have to cancel the job.

    With a missing tape from the backup set, this backup set is incomplete and should not be relied upon.

    • dori_bashan's avatar
      dori_bashan
      Level 6
      9 years ago

      Thanks

      so assuming i got 100 folders in this backup, you are saying that the best bet is to create a restore job per folder, and to see which of the restore jobs will run sucssesfully and which jobs will ask for the missing tape and will need to be canceled?

       

       

  • Colin_Weaver's avatar
    Colin_Weaver
    Moderator
    9 years ago

    Kind of depends on what you backup as to what might be recoverable

     

    If you backup up a Virtuka Machine (Hyper-V ior VMware) using the virtual agante - then you wonlt be able to restore anythign forn taoe if one is missing as we have to stage a whoel VM onto disk to get at an individual file and obviously part of that VM is missing as you lost a tape.

    Same applies to Exchange data etc

    However if is  standard file system (drive letter) data you should be able to get at something but the process will be fiddely as Backup Exec needs to be aware it is only a partial catalog - which kind of means you need to get rid of (move, don't delete) the existing catalog for the set and then re-catalog the tapes you do have with both don't use on-media catalogs and don't load all media in sequence enabled.

    Unfortunately messing with catalogs manually is fiddly and could cause isssues if you remove/move the wrong things (especially if you also do disk based backups as well) so I'd recommend a formal support case to help with this.

    • dori_bashan's avatar
      dori_bashan
      Level 6
      9 years ago

      Thanks

      This is standart files and folders backup (drive letter) no database or VM.

      We have a few Backup Exec servers,

      I think that the simplest way will be to move the tapes to another BE server, catalog them (with both don't use on-media catalogs and don't load all media in sequence enabled) , and make the restore on a diffrent server.

      this way i won't have to deal with the exisitng catalogs,

      what do you think?

      Thanks!

      • Colin_Weaver's avatar
        Colin_Weaver
        Moderator
        9 years ago

        That should work - it should result in a warning symbol against the set in the restore selections (either a red X or a yellow triange) that will indicate a partial set.