To perform a restore operation from tapes created with BackupExec, you need to have a complete picture of what's stored on the tapes and you may need to search through the data stored on the tapes. To do this, Inventory and Catalog the tapes. The following explains this further, hope it's helpful.
You need to catalog the tapes, so that you can see what files are actually stored on them. Depending how it's set up, BE will usually keep details of this in the catalog database, but to be sure catalog it.
Before cataloging, you need to inventory the drive. This will allow you to see the correct name of the tapes inserted into the drive. I've found most people don't give their tapes meaningful names and just leave the default DLT000012 style names.
So, perform the following two steps for each tape, or until you find the data you want to restore.
To Inventory a Tape
1. Insert the tape.
2. Click on the devices tab.
3. Select the correct tape drive.
3. Right click on the tape drive and select Inventory.
The inventory will complete in a few minutes and should display the correct tape name.
To Catalog a Tape
1. Inventory the tape.
2. When complete, right click on the tape drive again and select catalog.
This can take a while depending on what's on the tape.
This will add the directory structure of the data on the tape to the restore tree. You will need to do this for all tapes you want to search.
Making a restore selection.
When this is done, click on the restore selections tab. You will see details of what is on each tape. This is organised by selection and backup session which is a bit confusing at first because you may see more than one copy of each file, but once you find what you're looking for you can make the selection and run a restore job.
Hope this FAQ is useful
