I am trying to test our current restore procedure and I am running into some trouble. It seems that I can only restore from the last set of tapes used. I have even gone so far as to remove the current catalog then trying to run a full catalog on the tape without success.
Detailed description:
Our current setup is using a device which presents virtual tapes (ie tapes that are actually on hard drives) to backup exec. After some time those virtual tapes are written to some real tapes in the device. To backup exec it always appears as if the backup are written to the same tapes but we rotate the tapes in the device.
Our weekend backup is written across four tapes. The catalogs correctly show the data from the last full backup and I can restore from that just as one would suspect. The problem is when I try to restore from any tapes before the last backup. I can't backup exec to recognize the catalogs.
To show the problem I have run a few tests
Test 1: A quick index of the virtual tapes
* Under Tools -> Options -> Catalog
- Check Request all media in sequence for catalog operations
- Check Use storage media-based catalogs
* Stopped be services and renamed catalog folder
* Index all four tapes
* Catalog all four tapes
** Indexing seems to work, I can view catalogs as would be expected.
Test 2: A quick index of the real tapes (same data as test 1)
* Under Tools -> Options -> Catalog
- Check Request all media in sequence for catalog operations
- Check Use storage media-based catalogs
* Stopped be services and renamed catalog folder
* Index all four tapes
* Catalog all four tapes
** Indexing seems to work, I can view catalogs as would be expected.
Test 3: A quick index of the tapes from previous weeks backup
* Under Tools -> Options -> Catalog
- Check Request all media in sequence for catalog operations
- Check Use storage media-based catalogs
* Stopped be services and renamed catalog folder
* Index all four tapes
* Catalog all four tapes
** All tapes fail with error about Requested media not listed in index ... Nothing is listed in the catalog.
Test 4: A full catalog with last weeks tapes (same as test 3)
* Under Tools -> Options -> Catalog
- Uncheck Request all media in sequence for catalog operations
- Uncheck Use storage media-based catalogs
* Stopped be services and renamed catalog folder
* Index all four tapes
* Catalog all four tapes
** Tape 1 was successful Tapes 2,3,4 failed with the requested media not in index error. There is nothing listed in the catalog. I can watch the cataloging process and it will display the files that are on the tape as it reads them.
Tests 3 & 4 are representative of all previous backups we have so I am 100% sure it is not the tapes.
Does anyone have any suggestions for what I can try to get cataloging to work?
