Job History item NOT IN Restore/View By Resource

[MSUTech]

I have a large 3Tb FULL Backup that ran over the weekend;  It was successful, except for 1 'corrupt' file that had been modified during the backup.

MY PROBLEM:  I want to do a TEST RESTORE, but, when I go into RESTORE/VIEW BY RESOURCE, the last FULL backup that is available is the previous weekend.  The only available options are all incremental backups.  The backup did take 7 tapes.....

What might be the problem?

thanks..

[Dev_T]

Hello,

Have you performed an inventory and catalog operation on the TAPES used by the FULL backup before performing restore?

Check if the TAPES used by the FULL backups were overwritten by any other job.

Hope this helps...

[MSUTech]

The full backup was the last job that was run...... outside of a few small incremental backups since I originally posted this.... (tapes can not be overwritten for 14 weeks)...

[MSUTech]

I just moved the catalog file location (& files) AFTER I found this list of tapes 'missing'.  Is it possible that if the 'previous' catalog location space was 'full' that Backup Exec would NOT be able to write the catalog files and that would lead to this problem?  If so, can this be corrected?

[Ken_Putnam]

Is it possible that if the 'previous' catalog location space was 'full' that Backup Exec would NOT be able to write the catalog files and that would lead to this problem?

certainly, but BackupExec should tell you that it cannot write the On-Disk catalog in the job log


If so, can this be corrected?

Only way would be to move the catalogs to a disk with more free space, or else set the Truncate period.  Truncate deletes all details of a backup job, but maintains the header info, so the tapes/BKF files cannot be overwritten

In order to restore from a truncated catalog, you need to re-catalog all media belonging to that job

[MSUTech]

I DID get a low space message...... and I have moved the catalog to a much larger location.... how do I RE-CATALOG all media belonging to that specific job?

thanks...

[Ken_Putnam]

I DID get a low space message...... and I have moved the catalog to a much larger location.... how do I RE-CATALOG all media belonging to that specific job?

for tape files, insert each tape, inventory then catalog

for disk files inventory then catalog each of the BKF files that are assiciated with the job

[MSUTech]

I have 7 tapes that are involved in this backup...... I have had multiple problems with catalogging these tapes...

most recent:

I selected a single tape from the DEVICES tab (218L3) and chose 'inventory', which worked fine.  I then selected that tape from the DEVICES tab and chose 'catalog'.  The job ran for a little while and then returned this error:

"Catalog 00016 - The job failed with the following error:  The requested media is not listed in the media index and could not be mounted.  To add the media's catalog information to the disk-based catalogs, run an inventory operation on the media and resubmit the Catalog operation"

help....

[Ken_Putnam]

"Catalog 00016 - The job failed with the following error:  The requested media is not listed in the media index and could not be mounted.  To add the media's catalog information to the disk-based catalogs, run an inventory operation on the media and resubmit the Catalog operation"

Sounds like you may have some catalog corruption

As a workaround, you can shutdown all BE Services and rename the \Catalogs folder ( to \Catalogs.sav for example) Restart BE and it will create a new folder, inventory and catalog the seven tapes, then catalog them, and you should be able to restore from that set


To re-index your production catalog see http://seer.entsupport.symantec.com/docs/272886.htm

[MSUTech]

I did the following:

[1] renamed the Catalog folder to Catalog.sav

[2] inventoried ALL of the tapes

[3] inventoried tapes 217L3

[4] chose 'Catalog Media' for tape 217L3

from that point.......

The catalog job ran for a while and the catalogging of 217L3 created a number of .fln and .xml files within the previously 'empty' Catalog\SERVER folder....

interesting....  the filenames all seem to be referencing 'other' numbers.... there are 9 sets of 'new' xml/fh files.... with the following span:

{uniqueidentifier}_248.fh
{uniqueidentifier}_248.xml
{uniqueidentifier}_249.fh
{uniqueidentifier}_249.xml
{uniqueidentifier}_250.fh
{uniqueidentifier}_250.xml
{uniqueidentifier}_251.fh
{uniqueidentifier}_251.xml
{uniqueidentifier}_247.fh
{uniqueidentifier}_247.xml
{uniqueidentifier}_246.fh
{uniqueidentifier}_246.xml
{uniqueidentifier}_245.fh
{uniqueidentifier}_245.xml
{uniqueidentifier}_244.fh
{uniqueidentifier}_244.xml
{uniqueidentifier}_243.fh
{uniqueidentifier}_243.xml

[5] Then I eventually get the following 'job failed' error:

Catalog 00017 - The job failed with the following error: The request media is not listed in the media index and could not be mounted.  To add the media's catalog information to the disk-based catalogs, run an inventory operation on the media and resubmit the Catalog operation.


is it possible that it need an 'offsite' tape to catalog correctly?

Help?

thanks...

[Ken_Putnam]

The request media is not listed in the media index and could not be mounted. 

Hmm

Are your jobs APPEND or Overwrite

if they are Append, then ALL of the tapes in the Append Family should be inventoried before cataloging

[MSUTech]

append... and basically I defined all tapes in one group (probably a mistake) ... going forward I am going to create a FULL and INCREMENTAL group.... so, I think I need to 'put back' some tapes that were 'archived' ....

[Ken_Putnam]

going forward I am going to create a FULL and INCREMENTAL group


yeah, you have run into one of the gotchas of all append jobs

additionally, all media (tape volumes or BKF files) share a common OPP date (expiration date) that is reset each time the latest on is opened,  so none of them will ever expire

Many folks run a periodic full/overwrite (weekly or bi-weekly for example) and then daily INCR/append.

if you ever need to do a Disaster Recovery, you will need the last full and ALL incrs, in order, to get back to where you were.  If your backup window permits, you might consider DIFFs rather than INCR, they grab all data changed since the last full, but do not change the Archive bit, so all you need is the last FULL and last DIFF for recovery purposes

In the current situation, you should also be able to catalog individual tapes by de-selection the option to use media-based catalogs

[Chris_Mac]

I am having a catalog issue also.

I run the inventory and the correct media is located.
I run the catalog and the job monitor shows successfully completed.
But when I attempt to restore I have any error to say that "the media was not found in catalogs. Yoiu must first catalog the media if you want to use it for restore operations."

Back Up Exec 12.5 - Windows Server 2003 R2 Standard, Service Pack 2 - HP Ultrium 3 SCSI

[pkh]

@Chris - Do start a new discussion so that your question can get the attention that it deserves

[Chris_Mac]

Thanks PKH - new discussion started.