Problems restoring from duplicate backup set

[FluxBlocker]

We recently began using a Disk to Disk to Tape solution.  We back up to a HP D2D device which emulates a 1x8 auto-loader, and then that backup job is duplicated to tape for off-site storage.  We use BEWS 12.5 with the Library Expansion Option.  Recently we had a problem with data loss.  I made a huge mistake and removed and recreated the library on the D2D device and ran a full backup that night.  I did not think it would be a problem because we had duplicates of the backups on tape, and I had no idea that there had been data lost.  The very next day, I was informed by several users that their data was missing.  The missing data did not get backed up on the previous night's full backup because the problem, which was related to Windows Distributed File System, had occurred the previous day.  I was able to recover all the missing data except for one user's folder which contained a large amount of data.  So I went to restore data from the tapes that had been created from the duplicate backup sets.  These backups were done with Verify enabled and they "completed successfully".  The tapes are new and the tape device is new.  I have already been on the phone with HP and insured there are no hardware problems or incorrect SCSI settings or termination issues.  But for some reason, every time I try to catalog the data and restore it, the operation fails.  I have tried the fixes in both these 2 knowledge base articles with no luck:\
http://support.veritas.com/docs/278673 and http://support.veritas.com/docs/280822.

If anyone can recommend something that I have not tried that will help me recover this data, I would appreciate it beyond which words can describe.

Thanks very much in advance for your help.

-Flux

[Dev_T]

Hello,

Are you getting this message "The requested media is not listed in the media index and could not be mounted."?

You can try:
1  : Stop all the BE services.
2  : Stop the SQL Service for Backup Exec (SQL Server (BKUPEXEC))
3  : Rename the CATALOGS folder to CATALOGS_OLD (C:\program files\symantec\backup exec\catalogs)
4  : Create a new CATALOGS folder.
5  : Start the SQL service first and then rest of the services.
6  : Try to run an inventory and Catalog job on all the TAPES which were used in the duplicate job

[FluxBlocker]

Thanks. I have done that except I did not stop the SQL service for BackupExec.  I'll certainly give that a try.

I've also tried to restore from older tapes that we had been using before we changed over to this new D2D2T solution.  I connected the old tape drive we used before we purchased the new hardware, which had always worked great and we never had any issues with it.  But what has been happening with that is mind-boggling.  I inventory the tape - successful.  I then catalog the tape and BE says it's successful, but the amount of data on the cataloged tape is much more data than it should be, and when I do try to restore it, I get this message:

The selected media was not found in the catalogs.  You must first catalog the media if you want to use it for restore operations.  This right after I catalog it and it says it was successful.  But I know something is wrong because it catalogs more data than the tape would hold.  It is insane.

But I will try your suggestion with the new tapes and the new hardware.  Thanks very much for the advice.

-Flux

[FluxBlocker]

Using a 3-month old tape drive, new tape, and immediately after a successful backup/verify job:  I tried the suggestion creating the new catalogs folder and stopping and restarting the servies in the order specified.  The tape I am trying to restore (it won't even catalog) was from a duplicated backup set on a new tape created a couple months ago.  The tape has been stored in a dry room with temperature between 65 and 70 degrees farenheit.  If there were hardware / termination / SCSI / cabling issues, it seems to me the backup/verify job (a duplicate job) which took place earlier today would have failed too.

Here are the error messages I got when trying to catalog the tape after performing the steps exactly as recommended:

Job log: e00084c7 - A tape read/write error has occurred.  This is usually caused by dirty read/write heads in the tape drive.  Clean the tape drive, and then try the job again.  If the problem persists, try a different tape... etc.

In the Alerts, I get this: Catalog 00034 -- The job failed with the following error: A tape read/write error has occurred.  This is usually caused by dirty read/write heads in the tape drive.  Clean the tape drive, and then try the job again.  If the problem persists, try a different tape.  You may also need to check for problems with cables, termination, or other hardware issues.

I am going to run the cleaning tape and try one more time, but I will bet the farm it will fail.  Right now I am not a fan at all of Backup Exec or HP.

I have just renewed our license with Symantec.  Next week I am going to call technical support.  What a nightmare this has been!