Job Queued for No Reason

[saberman]

Windows XP with all patches
Backup Exec 9.1 with the service pack applied

I am trying to duplicate a backup set on disk to a Blu-Ray DL disc.  The job has aborted a few times saying the source data was not consistent.  So I drop everything up to the backup set that failed and resubmit the job.  The latest submission is sitting with a Job Status of Queued.  I have tried canceling it, rebooting the system and resubmitting it but it still winds up queued.  Since Symantec does that provide anyway to determine what a job is waiting on I am up the creek without a paddle. 

Any suggestions on how to actually get a duplicate job to start would be appreciated.

[Kiran_Bandi]

Check under alerts tab for any alerts waiting for response....

Regards...

[CraigV]

Hi saberman,

Is that Blu-Ray even supported as a backup device in BE 9.1? If not, you're going to be out of luck.

Best bet is to check the HCL for BE 9.1.

If it isn't listed, you've got to look into maybe backing that information up manually via some sort of writing programme like Nero, Ashampoo etc.

Thanks!

[saberman]

There aren't any pending alerts and none even issued since the job began.

[saberman]

Backup to disk only requires that a file system be on the traget device.  This is true of removable back up to disk devices as well. 

Backup Exec writes to a B2D device using normal disk I/O thus the HCL does not contain any B2D devices as any device with a file system is supported.

[pkh]

This is not true.  Not all devices are tested and supported as B2D devices.  Maybe the HCL for BE 9 does not list B2D devices, but the HCL for later versions definitely does.   You can check the HCL for BE 2010

http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH137050

[CraigV]

Well, I don't think the issue is with your B2D backup, otherwise you'd have mentioned you had failed backups. The issue is duplicating that backup to a Blu-Ray, and it's this device that I think isn't supported on the BE 9.1 HCL. You'd have to verify that, but BE 9.1 is so old, I'd bet on it not being supported...

If not, you'd have to see if you can back up that B2D data using something like Nero, or even NTbackup (if that supports Blu-Ray)...

[saberman]

According to the pdf file at the link you posted:
 

For "basic" backup-to-disk (B2D) capabilities, Backup Exec does not exclude or block recognition for disk devices. Basic backup-to-disk (B2D) devices can be seen in

the B2D section and Removable Backup-to-Disk sections. For this basic support, any device recognized and supported by the Windows platform should work with

Backup Exec. The disk devices listed in these two sections have been tested with Backup Exec as a result of a formal joint business agreement and OEM relationship,

but are not intended to be a complete list of compatible devices.

"For this basic support, any device recognized and supported by the Windows platform should work with

Backup Exec. "

 NoteNotiaojdfoisdf

[saberman]

I tried doing a duplicate B2D from an existing set of B2Ds to a single one.  All them on a hard drive (not demountable).  The duplicate ran successfully.  The verify failed half way through complaining about inconsistent data.  Of course once it gets one error the verification process stops so there is no way of know if the rest of the backup sets are any good.

This does not provide a comfortable feeling about relying on this for archival backup.

[pkh]

The operative word here is SHOULD.  It does not say that all devices WILL work.  There are plenty of examples in the forum of devices not being able to work as B2D devices.

[CraigV]

...are you running a Verify job after running the initial job? If you're running a Verify job after the duplicate, stop that and see if you get the same issue.

[saberman]

I ran the verify as a seperate job.  It failed at the same point with data inconsistent.  I assume that means that duplicate job did not write out the data correctly.

[saberman]

>If it isn't listed, you've got to look into maybe backing that information up manually via some sort of writing programme like Nero, Ashampoo etc

I tried backing up the B2D directories by just copying them.  Then I moved the media to retired and deleted it.  I then deleted the B2D devices.

To test recovery I recreated the B2D devices.  Then I copied the data from the DVD back to the hard drive.  I then ran an inventory on each of the B2D devices.  When I tried to run a catalog I got an error saying not all members of the media set were inventoried.

The steps were:

Backup, copy to removable media and free up the B2D space:
1. Create the B2D devices.
2. Backup to them.
3. Copy the contents of the B2D directories to removable media.
4. Retire and delete the media in the B2D devices.
5. Delete the B2D devices.
6. Delete the B2D directories

Test recovery by restoring the B2D devices and inventory and catalog them:
1. Create the B2D devices.
2. Restore the contents of the B2D directories from the removable media.
3. Inventory each B2D device.
4. Catalog the media in each B2D directory.

The last step throws an error..

I am begining to think that duplicating B2D never really worked in 9.1. which means I am not going to be able to move to a newer version.

[CraigV]

...not sure why you can't move to another version? Duplicating backups might have been new in 9.1, but it is much improved in later versions. It won't help to trial BE 2010 R2 for instance to see if it offers what you want.

[saberman]

>...not sure why you can't move to another version?

I am trying to transfer a number of years of archive tapes to another media that is more stable.  To do that I have to inventory and catalog the tapes then use duplicate to copy the data to disk and then duplicate again to copy it to a Blu-Ray disc.  The tape drive dropped off the HCL of later versions. Also the catalog structure changed in later versions and it is unclear if they can process the backup sets catalog information.

So the intent was to use 9.1 to transfer the archive data from tape to Blu-Ray discs and then get rid of the old tapes and the tape drive.  At which point I could move to a later version.

However, the key to that switch is being able to reliably duplicate the data that has been duplicated from tape to hard drive B2D directory to a Blu-Ray disc.

I can't reliable duplicate a B2D directory from one hard drive to another much less to Blu-Ray discs.

[pkh]

It is not the duplication that is not working.  It is your Blu-Ray.  Since you can duplicate the tapes to ordinary harddisk, you should keep them there and then move to the latest version of BE.  Once there, you can then decide how to archive them, like duplicating them to newer tape technology.  You are wasting more time trying to get your Blu-Ray to work with BE 9.

[saberman]

>It is not the duplication that is not working.  It is your Blu-Ray.  Since you can duplicate the tapes to ordinary harddisk

I think you missed an earlier post where I said I had the same type of failure going to a hard drive.  Duplicate seems to get intermitten failures.

I don't think I can load everything to disk anyway - I only have 4 TB available for the backups.

[pkh]

In this case, have you considered the possibility that your tapes might be corrupted and thus unreadable.

[saberman]

>In this case, have you considered the possibility that your tapes might be corrupted and thus unreadable.

The duplicate to disk from the tapes has been a problem and I wind up skipping backup sets.  However, at the end of the process the B2D devices verify clean.

At that point I have 12 B2D devices each of which has one month's worth of data.  (I did it that way so if one month's tapes were bad I won't have to start over.)  I then do a duplicate to disk from the 12 devices to one device.  That occassional fails during the verify phase.

Since BE 9.1 seems flaking I do another duplicate from the single device to another B2D device as a test.  (This is only if the first duplicate verified clean.)  Ocassionally this one fails verify.

To repeat -- the data is verified as good on the hard drive.  Consolidating it into a single B2D device or going form one consolidated set to another is where the failures are showing up.  Since the source backups are from the early section of the archive the total size for a year is around 36GB -- not terribly large by today's standards.  The current backups are running that much per month.