Need Recommendations on "Restoring" NBU 5.1 Tape data using NBU 7.5

[TAOlson]

I have been tasked with getting data from some old LTO-2 tapes made with NBU 5.1. My goal is not to restore it to a new NBU environment but to simply dump all contents from the tapes to disk. For this I have set up a machine with Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 (64-bit), 8 Gb RAM, 4 TB external HD and HP-Ultrium 448 tape drive with U160 SCSI HAB. All hardware and software diagnostics pass before a NBU install. I have admin rights. The machine is unconnected to any other device.

I obtained a copy of NBU 7.5 (since I cannot get 5.1), carefully read the startup and install guides and thought that I had successfully installed it.  However, my initial effort was unsuccessful at allowing me to browse the tape contents, much less offload the files. The experience gave me a lot of respect for the expertise exhibited in these forums.

I subsequently uninstalled NBU 7.5 and plan to reinstall it.

My initial questions are these:

1. Is there anything like a how-to guide for the steps to this basic restore operation?

2. Do any unusual things need to be done during the install?

3. Do I need to install a client on the server? Or is the Master Server / Media Server combination enough?

4. Almost nothing is known of the tapes, except that there is data on them. I do not know the MediaIDs, etc. Is there anything I can do to discover catalog names, client names, etc.? (I have been reading these forums and have tried a few things, such as bplistimage, but this did not return any values at all while NBU was installed on the machine.)

5. What advice for completeing the task would you give me? How would you approach this problem?

Any and all help would be deeply appreciated.

Best Regards

[Marianne · Accepted solution]

Please disable UAC on the Windows server. I have previously seen it causing issues with restores.

Have you run the Device Config wizard to add the tape drive to NBU config? (I assume standalone tape drive? No robot?)

The first step is to detemine the media-id. I assume there is no external label?

Hopefully loading the tape into the drive, waiting for the Ready light to come on, will show internal media id on tape's header in Device Monitor.

If not, it may be necessary to run a physical inventory on the tape drive:

From cmd:

<install_path>\Volmgr\bin\
vmphyinv -u <drive_number>

(drive_number is the index number - probably 0 if you have only one drive)

This action should add media id in Media section of the GUI.
You will need to do this for all tapes.

After this, you can proceed to import the tape into NBU catalogs.
See this TN for howto steps: http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH43584 
Complete phase 1 and phase 2 import as per the TN.
Important to first do phase 1 import for all tapes before phase 2 is started for all tapes.

Please check Results tab to see original client name and backup dates.
Hopefully policy type will also be listed - you will need all of this info to restore data.

There is no need to install Client or any other software.

After successful import, you can browse for backups using the BAR (Backup Archive and Restore) GUI.

This Getting Started Guide should help you: http://www.symantec.com/docs/DOC5146

The Source Client will be the original client. 
The Destination Client will be you master/media server.
Policy type will hopefully be Standard (Unix/Linux) or MS-Windows.

Hope this helps!

[TAOlson]

Marianne,

Thank you for your help. Your recommendations worked flawlessly. UAC was the culprit behind my problem. Problem solved.

Regards,

Tim Olson