What is on unknown tapes

[Jairo_Yun]

Hi,
I found several boxes of backup tapes that were left from a previous department. I don't know what type of backup software they used, but I think it's Backup Exec.

Can anyone suggest if it's possible to find out what is on these tapes? I'm hoping there is a database log of what was backed up to what tape.

I saw that there is a Job Log that is a text file but I don't recall seeing what tape it was backed up to, i.e. a tape label.

Thanks for any help.
- Newbie

[Ken_Putnam]

if they were written in MTF (Microsoft Tape Format) you should be able to stick the tape in a drive, inventory and catalog even if the appication was not BackupExec

You may run into problems if hardware compression was used, you may not

You will have problems if they were not created by BackupExec and were created with software comression.

[Jairo_Yun]

Thanks!

I've been told a good amount of the tapes were backed up using Backup Exec. There are a lot of tapes so I would like to use the backup log almost as a dictionary to know what files were backed up to which tapes. I would rather not have to restore every single tape - there are a LOT of them.

Do you know if the logs contain the tape label - which tape it was backed up to?

Also, is there somewhere else that Backup Exec may be keeping a proprietary log, perhaps a database? Or is Backup Exec parsing the backup log for all the information when it reports backup history info on the screen?

Thank you very much.
- Newbie

[Jairo_Yun]

I found out that many of the tapes were backed up using Backup Exec. i don't know which version.

Is there a way to find out what files were backed up to which tapes "without" loading each and every tape?

There are some 4000 tapes, and it would be useful to know what is on each tape. I have looked in the evaluation version of Backup Exec and cannot find filename information in the BEDB.

Thanks,
Newbie

[Ken_Putnam]

If you can find the machine that backed these tapes up, you should be able to copy the ..\Catalogs\*.U01 files from the old machine to the new media server. then shut down the backupexec services, delete the BETOPCAT.IDX file from the \Catalogs directory and restart the serices.

AFAIK, that is the only way to import specifics about tapes into BackupExec. If you can't do that, you are stuck with doing an inventory/catalog for each of the 4000+ old tapes

I don't envy you at all, and you do have my sympathy.

[Jairo_Yun]

I was able to find some backed up filename info in the BEX_SERVER_nnn.xml log file. Does anyone know WHEN Backup Exec moved from a regular text file to an xml file for logging? I am currently trying out the Evaluation version 10, but the original tapes may have been backed up using an earlier version.

Thank you.
- Newbie

[Jairo_Yun]

Thanks for all your help, Ken.

I am also thinking that IF the log files exist with "filename info" specified, I might be able to parse the information out.
What do you think?

Thanks,
- Newbie

[Ken_Putnam]

Veritas switched from TXT to XML with v9.0

if you can find the job logs, yes you should be able to parse them to get Job Name, Date, Tape Label, Server/Share etc, as well as file details.

[Jairo_Yun]

Ken - Thank you VERY much for your help. It has been extremely helpful and I think it will do the job, provided the logs are available.

- Newbie