Problems restoring from backup

[Roger_Gremillio]

Greetings.

**** THIS REQUEST IS RELATED TO RECOVERY FROM HURRICANE KATRINA ****

I don't normally deal with beckup/restore situations, but one of my customers lost their entire computer system to damage from hurricane Katrina. He has backups of his database on an old TR4 tape and wishes to restore it to a new computer. I do not know what version of backup exec he previously used as the software and computers are buried under several feet of mud and debris! I do know that he was using a version of backup exec that was included with a Seagate Hornet STT28000A drive purchased around 2000 or 2001.
I downloaded the evaluation version of backup exec 10 and attempted to restore it with that app. The app seems to recognize another STT28000A drive that I installed in his new machine. I performed an Inventory of the tape and BE 10 was able to locate the records. I performed a catalog of the tape which fails, telling me that the DC2000 cartridge was formatted with an unknown format.

Am I doing something wrong? Does 10.0 not recognize the old Hornet drives properly? Does 10.0 not recognize files backed up with older versions of BE? As far as I know, the data on the tape is valid, so there must be a way to recover it. Can anyone give me any advice on how to do this?

Thanks in advance for any assistance you can provide.

[Ken_Putnam]

If the tapes were created with Hardware Compression, your customer may be SOL.

I ran into the same situation with a couple of "identical" DLT4000s. Data backed up on one with HW turned on were unreadable on the other. and, of course the firmware on the source machine was so old that I couldn't find a copy to put on the newer drive. (I had just started there, and had not had a chance to get all my hardware drivers and firmware up to date - but don't get me started on the previous admin )

[Roger_Gremillio]

Thanks for the info, Ken. It may well me that you hit the nail on the head, but I'm really not very familiar with tape drives--I've never had much cause to worry with them until now!

Does anyone know if the Seagate STT28000A (Hornet Travan 4) drive is capable of hardware compression? If so, at least I would be able to give my customer a definite answer. I know for a fact that the software compression was NOT turned on during the backups, so that shouldn't be an issue.

Thanks again, Ken, and anyone else who may have helpful info.
Roger

[Roger_Gremillio]

Just wanted to say, I'd still like some more input on this problem. Is hardware compression an issue on Seagate STT28000's or not? Could there be some other answer to this that I'm unaware of?

[ray_littlefie1]

2 cents worth:

It could be a firmware issue. It could be a slight alignment problem on the source drive or your drive.

I would give it a second shot using the windows native NTBackup tool. It uses the same (MTF) format as Veritas Backup Exec.

If possible, I would try another Hornet drive. There is a tool called MTFcheck.exe in the Windows resource kit if you want to verify the format (however, if NTBackup gives an unrecognized format error- It may be beating a dead horse).

If those options don't work, then you're left with a data recovery service or software.

[Roger_Gremillio]

Thanks. I didn't know BE used the same format as NTBackup. I'll try your suggestion and see what happens.

[Deepali_Badave]

Hello,

We want to know if the solution provided has helped you in getting resolve your issue?

NOTE : If we do not receive your reply within two business days, this post would be marked assumed answered and would be moved to answered questions pool.

[Roger_Gremillio]

Sorry, my issue has not been resolved yet. I tried NTBackup and it was unable to recover the data. At present, I am assuming this is a hardware issue relating to different firmware within the STT28000A drives themselves, but I have no way of verifying that. I would still like to hear recommendations if anyone has any, but I believe my next move is a data recovery service. Thanks to everyone who made suggestions. I appreciate your efforts even though my issue has not been resolved.