Restoring from Tape after rebuild with Backup Exec v.6.11

[Yardley_Guy]

I have a client I recently acquired who had a castrophic failure of his server (NT 4.0) and had a new PC put in its place (Windows 2000 Pro) with the old tape drive (Archive Python) intalled to it.

He wants to recover the data from the backups to his new system but has so far on been able to get a "Warning: UNable to decompress" message from the Backup Exec 6.11 software.

Does anyone have a walkthrougth to resolve this problem?

Thanks!

Yardley Guy

Message Edited by Yardley Guy on 08-09-200710:04 AM

[Ken_Putnam]

Sounds like the compression algorithms have changed from v6.11 to 8.6

Does the client still have the v6.11 install software?  If so , have them build out an NT4 box,  connect the tape drive and install v6.11 

Then try the restore again

If that doesn't work, they are probably SOL

Message Edited by Ken Putnam on 08-09-200710:17 AM

[Yardley_Guy]

Thanks Ken.

He did the backup in 6.11 and had the new 2000 box has been loaded with the 6.11 version. There is no 8.6 in the mix.

I am not "Skilled" in the Backup Exec use and might just be missing an obvious setting or preference.

When I attempt to restore, the tapre rewinds and starts reading but then gets that compression message.

I am attempting to restore to a new drive into a blank directory just so he can get access to his backed up documents and reference databases.

Anything you or anyone can suggest in this would be great.

Also, he does not have access to a new box or the NT 4.0 software so he is stuck trying to resolve this on a Windows 2000 Pro box.

Regards,

Yardley Guy

[Ken_Putnam]

Sorry, don't know where the v8.6 came from

Hmmm

Is this the same tape drive that created the tapes, or was that repaced with the current drive?

How old are these tapes?  Sounds like they may be corrupt 

[Yardley_Guy]

Yes. It is the same tape drive. I don't know how long they have been reusing tapes but the last backup was done last week so the data hasn't been sitting on the tape long.

I am not really sure whether they were even doing erases before reusing taoes so I am 85% in the dark.

I guess I am just looking for some idea of whether I might simply be missing something obvious that a regular user of the technology might be able to point out.

Thanks.

Yardley Guy

[Ken_Putnam]

I started with Backup Exec on v6.1, but that was a LOOOOOOONG time ago.

Did v6.11 install OK, or did you have to use APCOMPAT mode?

AFAIK, BackupExec has alway used MTF (Microsoft Tape Format) to write to tape.    If you shut down all BackupExec services, and use NTBackup, can that see the tape header and restore?