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Full backup sets missing, incremental are available

nilz
Level 3

Hi,

I am backing up weekly fulls and daily incementals. Under job history it shows each full backup but under backup sets the full backup is missing.

We're backing up to tape and each day the tape is switched. 

Anyone have an ide what;s going on here?

 

Thx,

Nilz

14 REPLIES 14

DarthBilly
Level 5
Employee

That doesn't sound good. Do you see your data under restore selections? In Backup Exec 10.x under restore selections you can switch between media view. Does it show the full? Can you determine the tape from this view? This may help you track down the full media.

Hi, I am actually using 2014. In the attached pictures we can see the backup sets with the missing full backup and the Job history with the successful FULL backups on Saturday

Hopsnbarley
Level 4
Employee

From the screenshot of the backup sets view, it looks like the button to show dependent sets is highlighted (in ribbon menu at top). Try clicking that button off to display all backup sets.

I can select the "Show Dependent Backup Sets" button but it only opens another window with only the incementals

Hopsnbarley
Level 4
Employee

hmmm. Try going through the 'Storage' button at the top menu. You should also be able to view backup sets fron the storage tab by drilling down through the device. Just curious if they show up there at all.

Under each tape I ran the restore wizard non of the tapes 1-5 each shows th full backup either

Hopsnbarley
Level 4
Employee

How are the Full and Incremental jobs set up, in terms of which Media Set, and which Overwrite Option ? If you edit the Backup Job, then select the Storage option on the left, it will display these.

 

They are both setup with no overwrite protection. I think this was done because the tapes are usually switched manually daily after each run

Hopsnbarley
Level 4
Employee

And your certain that the tape that has the Full backup  *is* removed before the next incremental runs? The way the overwrites and jobs are setup it looks like the full backup tape is being overwritten by the next incremental.

 

 

If you cjheck the job log for the full backup job it will display which media (i.e. tape in your case) was used. Then check the iincremental job logs to see which tapes were used for those backups. Hopefully they weren't using the same media. 

 

 

I found another backup job which runs an incremental every day (including the day after the full) on sunday.

This is one day before the tape is switched. Under Storage I can see there is a different media set select and "Append to media, overwrite if no appendable media is available" is checked.

Could this be my problem? Should this backup job be able to overwite the same same tape if it's run the day after the full even though it's supposed to append?

Hopsnbarley
Level 4
Employee

I believe you have found your problem. Your Full backup tape is not protected in anyway (from the screenshot you sent yesterday) so the next backup is going to overwrite it.

You should think about creating a media set that has some amount of overwrite protection (day, week, whatever) so other jobs will NOT overwrite it.  Then run the Full backup targeted to that media set. You may need to tweak your tape swapping routine a bit.

 

 

Thanks, I think that makes sense.

Looking at the other backup job (the only other server), it seems i have 4 weeks of overwrite protection enabled. I still cannot find the full backup set for that server either.

Unfortunately we do not have a automatic tape changer and there is noone to switch the tape weekends (the day after the full)

Hopsnbarley
Level 4
Employee

Here is a document which does a decent job of explaining media sets, overwrite and append periods as they associate to tape media. The screenshots look to be from an earlier version, but the underlying logic is going to be the same.

https://www.veritas.com/support/en_US/article.TECH5459

 

One thing to note, if your Media Overwrite Protection is set to None (from Settings|Storage), your tapes could be overwritten regardless of what overwrite protection time frame the media set has. In essence you are turning off Overwrite Protection if it is set to None.