Restoring LTO2 tapes from another system

[jvdhoeven]

Hello everyone,

I've just strated using Netbackup in an effort to recover data stored on some LTO2 tapes. Unfortunately I'm running into the following problem whenever I try to inventory the tapes in order to be able to perform the 2 phase import process:

Unknown or corrupt media detected in drive

I'm currently using NetBackup 6.5 on Windows 2008 Server (32bit) and a standalone tape drive. 

Is there any way to get vmphyinv to inventory the tape even though I'm getting this error? 

Thank you for your help and time,

-Jorick

[dcon]

Hi Jorick,

Was the original backup on the LTO2 media created using NetBackup?

[Kiran_Bandi]

Which model is your tape drive?

 An Ultrium drive can read data from a cartridge in its own generation and two prior generations.

[Marianne]

Which make/model is your standalone tape drive?

If you are trying to do phase 2 import, does this mean that phase 1 has completed successfully?

One more thing:

32-bit W2008 media server is NOT supported. Only 64-bit as from NBU 6.5.2.

See NetBackup 6.x Operating System (CL) for Client,Server,NOM,NDMP,BMR,SAN Client,MSEO:   http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH70729

Find a 64-bit W2008 server or else a 32-bit W2003 server.

[mph999]

Very true, but don't forget, if the tape is not compatible the drive will not read it at all.

[jvdhoeven]

So I have an HP ultrium 448 SAS.

The backups on the LTO2 tapes were done using netbackup according to the person who asked me to extract the data. 

Aha an unsupported version of windows.. That could be the issue, I've used the same system with success to extract LTO4 drives (albeit with a different tape drive) so I hope that isn't the issue. 

I-m not actually able to get to phase 1 import as I cannot even see the media in netbackup I've tried following these steps:

1. run vmphyinv to inventory the tape (this is where I-m running into trouble)

2. Initialise import in netbackup administration console

3. Import Data

4. Duplicate data onto a disk for later access.

This process worked the the LTO4 tapes but doesn't seem to work with the LTO2

[jvdhoeven]

Hi Dave,

As far as I know the original backup was done using Netbackup 6.5 

[jvdhoeven]

The tape drive is an HP Storageworks Ultrium 448 which is designed to read LTO2 tapes

[jvdhoeven]

Thanks for your help, the windows version could very well be an issue, I'll see what I can find out. NBU behaved normally when I was extracting some LTO4 tapes. 

I'm using an HP Storageworks Ultrium 448 to read the tapes and I can't get past the vmphyinv stage of the import. I cannot even reach phase 1 let alone phase 2 at the moment.

[Mark_Solutions]

Is your firmware up to date in the drive?

The HP site indicates quite a few errors corrected in the firmware - last release looks to be January this year and includes lines such as:

Drive tuning has been improved so that the tape drive is better able to read some tapes written by non-HP drives.

#Edit#

This one i believe:

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareDescription.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&prodTypeId=12...

[jvdhoeven]

I know that my firmware is not up to date. I am wary of upgrading it though because when I was using the LTO4 tape drive I had to downgrade the firmware to get it to work. I'll give it a try though, thanks for the help!

[jvdhoeven]

After updating to the latest firmware I still have no ability to index the tapes. I am still recieving the error "Unkown or corrupt media detected in the drive" when I run vmphyinv -u 0 -h server -verbose.

Thanks anyway.

[Mark_Solutions]

Are your SAS card and Tape drivers also up to date?

Are you using any specific SIZE_DATA_BUFFERS files? At LTO2 it was probably at 64k - NBU should detect its block size but just in case!

[jvdhoeven]

Hi thanks for your help. 

I've checked the drivers and the tape drivers are up to date whereas the controller drivers are one revision behind. I checked the changelog however and the updated version apparently doesn't fix anything in the 448 code.

As for the SIZE_DATA_BUFFERS I check in %install_path%\NetBackup\db\config and couldn't find any files with that name so I am assuming that NBU is defaulting to 64kb. Do you know if there is any way to check?

[mph999]

The SIZE_DATA_BUFFERS makes NO difference.  The tape is 'written' you cannot change the block size.

I suspect is the issue isn't hardware/ firmware related, then the problem is with the media.

"Unknown or corrupt media detected in drive" 

Try this:

Lets see if we can read the tape header in 'Windows' and opposed to NBU.

http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH73812

Martin

[jvdhoeven]

So I followed what you said and here is the dump of the header:

 00000000:  00000000  00000000  00000000  00000000  00000001

 00000020:  00000000  00000300  cece0159  00000000  00000000

 00000040:  00000000  0000392f  32382f30  3720383a  30302050

 00000060:  4d000000  00000000  00000000  00000000  00000000

 00000080:  00000000  00000000  00000000  00000000  00000000

 00000100:  00000000  00000000  00000000  00000000  00000000

 00000120:  00000000  00000000  00000000  00000000  00000000

 00000140:  00000000  00000000  00000000  00000000  00000000

 00000160:  00000000  00000000  00000000  00000000  00000000

 00000180:  00000000  00000000  00000000  00000000  00000000

 00000200:  00000000  00000000  00000000  00000000  00000000

 00000220:  00000000  00000000  00000000  00000000  00000000

 00000240:  00000000  00000000  00000000  00000000  00000000

 00000260:  00000000  00000000  00000000  00000000  00000000

 00000280:  00000000  00000000  00000000  00000000  00000000

 00000300:  00000000  00000000  00000000  00000000  00000000

 00000320:  00000000  00000000  00000000  00000000  00000000

 00000340:  00000000  00000000  00000000  00000000  00000000

 00000360:  00000000  002941fd  460000a9  dba04c00  00000000

 00000380:  00000000  00000000  00000000  00000000  00000000

All I can get out of the Hex is a date time corresponding to the time period from the backup. 

�������ÎÎ
Y��������������9/28/07 8:00 P�����)AýF��©Û L�����

Is it the media that is broken perhaps?

[jvdhoeven]

I also recieved the following error when reading from the tape:

"read of 1024 bytes indicated only 1024 bytes were read, err=234

READ error: More data is available.

READ failed on loop count =  1."

[mph999]

I think broken media would be a reasonable conclusion ... or just corrupt.

The beginning of the header should translate to 'vol' it doesn't - game over ...

Sorry about that, but something nasty has happened to that tape ... or, you simply have the wrong tape and it was never a NBU tape.

Regards,

Martin

[jvdhoeven]

After some research I gather that NBU reads at the same block size it writes.

The problem is I am on a completely new system and the only information I know about the tapes is what I could gather from the packaging and that I have been told that NetBackup was used to create the backups. 

Is it possible that if the backups were written with a 256kb block size on the old system that my new system with its 64kb default cannot read the data?

Regards,

Jorick