Catalog job is not (really) starting

[Frank_Kabiersch]

Hello Forum,

I need to restore files from five older (2005 and 2006) LTO1 tapes that had been written with previous versions of BE (now running BE 2010 SP1).

In order to access the tapes I put them in to my library and ran an inventory job. I now get a bunch of 'unknown media' with barcode numbers in the devices view.

My next step is to run a 'catalog job' on the library. The job gets cued and then, for a brief moment, it shows: "media is being loaded" just to go back to being cued again. This loop goes on forever until I finally stop it manually.

BTW: The media is write protected by the little hardware-switch with the lock on it.

Now why can't I run a catalog job on the inserted tapes? And how can I access the data? Any help is highly appreciated.

THX in advance
Frank

[CraigV]

Hi Frank,

Go to Tools --> Options --Catalog, and deselect the option: Use storage media-based catalogs.

Run the catalog job again and see if it catalogs the tape.

Don't forget that when restoring, your default restore period is normall a couple of weeks back. With you restoring from 2005/2006, you will have to select that date FIRST before you will see your data.

Laters!

[Frank_Kabiersch]

Thanks Craig,

... but the problem persists. The media is not even loaded into the drive when I start the catalog job.

So I tried to do another inventory and got some error messages concerning incompatible media. I have inserted LTO1 tapes into my DELL TL2000. The device should be able to read LTO1. The error message says that there could also be problems with the barcode or with the barcode rules, but BE does show the correct barcode-numbers in the "devices" view.

Do I have to change any settings in the device itself to be able to read from my LTO1 tapes?

Thx
Frank

[Mahesh_Roja]

the Errors from event logs?

[RahulG]

If you have bar code rule enable try disabling it ..You shuld 1st make sure the inventory is successful and then proceed with the catalog ...It might be that the Tape Media is Bad. Try cataloging a different tape and see if that works .

[Frank_Kabiersch]

Sorry to have bothered you, but in my DELL TL2000 there is an IBM ULT3580TD-4 Drive that is not compatible with LTO1 tapes, so I have to find a different drive in order to be able to restore data. Thank yo for helping me get on the way to find the problem, though!

Frank

[CraigV]

Mmm...an LTO3 drive will read LTo1 media...an LTO4 drive won't...which 1 do you have?

[Frank_Kabiersch]

As I just wrote: It's an IBM ULT3580TD-4. The manaual says that it doesn't support the use of LTO1. An Ultium-3 does read from (but not write to) LTO1 tapes. I have an older DELL PV122T which has an Ultrium1 drive in it, but it has a SCSI interface, so I gotta check if I can attach it to my PE1950 in some way (or another) ;).

Frank

[CraigV]

Mmm...sorry Frank, didn't read that part. Only way around that Frank is to find a SCSI card that fits into your Dell server. There would be no way to convert SCSI to SAS as far as I know.

ANY chance you have an old server lying around that you can install a trial version of BE onto? Best be then is to duplicate your backups from those old tapes to disk, and then onto new tape! That's what I would do if I had the disk space and spare tapes.

[CraigV]

Hi Frank,

Any news here?

[Frank_Kabiersch · Accepted solution]

Hi Craig,

I'm sorry, I didn't know how to close the issue ...

Fortunately I was able to dig out the old LTO1-Hardware, a PVT-122 and still have the old HDD of my PE1950 with BE9 and all the drivers on it. So the machine booted into W2K and I could start BE9, read the catalogs and recover my Mailboxes.

This teaches me not only to backup data, but to keep old hardware as well.

Thanks for the support and sorry for not coming back to close this issue on time.

Frank