can't catalog Tapes, serious problem.

[atos]

I have a serious problem regarding Catalog our LTO 3 tapes from our previous BE11d installation.

Before, we had Backup Exec 11d and we have alot of tapes, yearly and monthly backups that we are saving for a loong time.

Because we wanted a fresh start we installed Backup Exec 2010 on a new server and did all the work with selections etc from scratch, we did not move the BE database.

Now we have a Backup Exec 2010R3 installation on a win2008 R2 server.

we use the same tape library, same drives etc.

first i did an Inventory on the tape, then i tried to catalog the tape but i got this message(i have tried on several tapes):

"Job ended: den 4 maj 2011 at 15:13:26
Completed status: Failed
Final error: 0xe0000900 - The requested media is not listed in the media index and could not be mounted. To add the media's catalog information to the disk-based catalogs, run an inventory operation on the media and resubmit the Catalog operation.
Final error category: Backup Media Errors"

Am i doing soething wrong here??

You should be able to Catalog tapes from a different BE installation!?

//Johan

[AmolB]

Refer to  http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH44676

[atos]

thx for the answer, im little bit sceptic about doing the renaming catalogs etc.

i just want to be able to Catalog tapes If we need them for some reason, only then.

i thought about one thing, if i want to catalog 1 tape from a weekend, and there are 10 tapes used that weekend, must i first inventory all 10 tapes and then catalog all of them?

i did only inventory and catalogen 1 of those 10 in that case.

are you with me?

[AmolB]

Are you using a standalone tape device or a library ? 

If its a library then perform an inventory of all the tapes at once and run the catalogs job BE will

generate catalogs for all the tapes in a single job. If its a standalone device then you will have to

perform inventory and then run a catalog job for each tape.

Note: You will not lose any catalog information if you rename the catalogs folder.

[atos]

im using a library!

ok, so if i do an Inventory on all 10 tapes first, when thats finnished, can i just righklick on 1 of the 10 tapes in the library and choose Catalog and BE will catalog all 10 of them automatically?

could the reason of the failed catalog job be that i only tried to catalog 1 tape?

Thanks for the help, very much appreciated!

[AmolB · Accepted solution]

Put all the tapes in the library at once and perform inventory and run catalog job for 1 of the tape

BE will take care of the remaining tapes

[Colin_Weaver]

Just to clarify slightly - Backup Exec mantains media families  which in  a very simlistic way are a collection of tapes that are related to one another by spanning activities from one tape to another.

A catalog operation will potentially require the related tapes in the same family in order to complete and the error is because a tape is being asked for that the current installation of Backup Exec does not know the location for. An inventory of all tapes will provide the location references and should sort the issue out.

Note: Backup Exec does not require all tapes in a family - as this could be an infinite number with the earliest ones in the family having been overwritten a long time ago, however missing tapes out of the middle of a family sequence can cause problems. In general we therefore don't recommend appending for ever - as soon as a job starts as an overwrite process (instead of becoming an overwrite by spannning between tapes)  then a new family is started.

[atos]

thx, inventory all of the tapes in from the specifik backuptime solved the problem.

//Johan