How to re-use the old tape

[yskcam]

Hi all,

This is my first time to hand-on the backup, especially veritas netbackup 6.5. I do not have much information about the current backup process nor the status of each tape in my store room and now I wish to re-use one of old tape but it seems that I cannot get it assigned. Could you please instruct me how to re-use a tape?

Please be informed that I am using NetBackup 6.5. In the media list, I can see the tape in question but its assigned date is empty. I have gone through forums and they said that I should import the old-tape to make it useable, is that the correct thing to do?

[RiaanBadenhorst · Accepted solution]

Hi,

If a tape is listed in your media list and the assigned date field is empty then the tape can be re-used. NetBackup will use it again for future backups. So if you place the tape in the robot/library and do an inventory it will use the tape again. Make sure that after the inventory the tape is listed in the scratch pool. If you don't have a scratch pool created then it would be a good idea to make one. Then move the tape you want to use to it.

Hope that helps.

[Marianne · Accepted solution]

In support of Riaan's excellent post - NBU will assign the tape when it is chosen to be overwritten.
There is no need to manually assign it.

See this TN: 

About selecting media in robots on UNIX/Linux
http://www.symantec.com/docs/HOWTO32854 

PS:
NBU 6.5 ran out of support almost 3 years ago... Time to upgrade!

[Mark_Solutions · Accepted solution]

If the tape has no time assigned, is in the correct pool (or in scratch) and has the same denisty as the tape drives (HCART, HCART2 etc.) then it should get used .. but any of these three points will stop it from being used so do check that all are correct.

No need to import

[yskcam]

Hi all,

Thanks for your input, this confirm that I am on the right track. The media in question is now automatically assinged and data was successfully written.

And Yes, we are considering migrate to recent release of NBU. Again, Thanks for your helps.