Backup is asking for new media- so what's been backed up so far?

[JDMils________]

Lately our BE is asking us to insert overwriteable media after our nightly job starts. There is nothing on the alert dialog about this, but it seems that it has run out of tape and is asking for another one to continue the backup.

I have had to cancel the backups each time as we don't have spare tapes but i would like to know what has been backed up to the point it sends the Alert but can't figure out how to do this. We have logging turned on at the Directory level.

If I look thru the job log, the "Set Information" for each parent item being backed up has a "Backup Started" and "Backup completed" which, to me, indicates the set was successfully backed up.

There is one backup set called "\\SQLSERVER\D: SQL" which is a list of files on our SQL Server which need to be backed up. The backup set has a "Backup started" and "Backup Completed" line, but half-way thru the list of directories in the Job Log, it shows this:

....
....
Directory \Program Files\BackOffice\Solomon\ES
Directory \Program Files\BackOffice\Solomon\EventLog
Directory \Program Files\BackOffice\Solomon\EventLog1
Directory \Program Files\BackOffice\Solomon\FD
Directory \Program Files\BackOffice\Solomon\FD65
Directory \Program Files\BackOffice\Solomon\FP
Directory \Program Files\BackOffice\Solomon\FP65
Directory \Program Files\BackOffice\Solomon\FP65\IO_DATA
Directory \Program Files\BackOffice\Solomon\FP65\SysData
Directory \Program Files\BackOffice\Solomon\FS
Directory \Program Files\BackOffice\Solomon\GL
Directory \Program Files\BackOffice\Solomon\GS
Directory \Program Files\BackOffice\Solomon\Help
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Drive and media mount requested: 2/14/2007 3:01:54 AM
Drive and media information from media mount: 2/14/2007 12:11:28 PM
Drive Name: DELL VS160
Media Label: JLRX01- Wednesday
Media GUID: {26d9fca4-ab53-4001-b7e0-88992e2d5146}
Overwrite Protected Until: 2/20/2007 12:11:28 PM
Appendable Until: 1/1/1900 11:00:00 AM
Targeted Media Set Name: Daily Backup
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Backup set #5 on storage media #2
Directory \Program Files\BackOffice\Solomon\Import
Directory \Program Files\BackOffice\Solomon\IN
Directory \Program Files\BackOffice\Solomon\inspectr
Directory \Program Files\BackOffice\Solomon\IQ
Directory \Program Files\BackOffice\Solomon\IR
Directory \Program Files\BackOffice\Solomon\LC
Directory \Program Files\BackOffice\Solomon\MC
Directory \Program Files\BackOffice\Solomon\MDAC
Directory \Program Files\BackOffice\Solomon\OM
Directory \Program Files\BackOffice\Solomon\OU
Directory \Program Files\BackOffice\Solomon\PA
Directory \Program Files\BackOffice\Solomon\PO
Directory \Program Files\BackOffice\Solomon\PR
Directory \Program Files\BackOffice\Solomon\RE
Directory \Program Files\BackOffice\Solomon\Renown
....
....

It looks as tho another tape was inserted into the drive and the backup completed, but this is impossible as I cancelled the backup when it showed the Alert.

Can someone explain what is going on?

I can email the Job Log to anyone who can help. Thanks

BE10d on Win 2003 Server SP1. Backup starts each night at 9pm.

[Philip_Pearson]

Have you run a catalogue on a tape to see what is on it?

[Ken_Putnam]

If you have an autoloader and have not partitioned the slots, BackupExec will grab any expired tape it can find to continue a backup when the first tape fills up. then when the next job starts, there will be no overwritable tape available, and it will ask for one, without having backed up anyting at all

[JDMils________]

I haven't run a catalog on the tape because I was hoping that BE would tell me what it had backed up and whereabouts it has stopped before it asked for another tape. The job log, as I have shown, shows what seems to me, the backup took in all files.

I can't figger it out? I don't use an autoloader, just one DLT-160 drive and a DLT-160 tape (which of course is only 80 GB with compressed upto 160 GB capacity). The backup seems to stop at 100 GB.

So why doesn't the job log show where the backup stopped?

[Philip_Pearson]

You can turn up logging tools/options so that it logs directory/file access.

[JDMils________]

I've got it logging upto the directory stage, but I can't see at which directory the backup stops.

Check out my first post. From what I can read, it seems to have stopped at "Directory \Program Files\BackOffice\Solomon\Help" then requested the new media, but it then seems to have continued onto the next set of folders eventhough no new tape was inserted!

[Ken_Putnam]

is this in a loader or standalone drive?

if it's standalone, then yes this is very strange, if it is a loader, then this is to be expected, backupexec posts an alert, but then grabs an overwritable tape, cancels the alert, and continues the job

[JDMils________]

It's a standalone drive. I'm going to put this issue on hold until I can dig deeper into BE's logs for the last week. Thanks for your help so far!