nmhtech10 Posted August 17, 2010 Report Share Posted August 17, 2010 Hey everyone, hoping someone here can help me out with this. We have a client who was recently forced to upgrade from Retro. v.6 to v.8.2 when their LTO-3 deck went down and v.8.2 refused to recognize their new LTO-4 deck. If it helps it is a Tandberg LTO-4 HH drive connected via SCSI to PCI-e. The system they are running this on is an Mac Pro Tower. System specs are sufficient to run the 8.2 engine. As a result of the upgrade, all of their old backups now need to be rebuilt using 8.2. We were able to set them up to reference the old catalog files in v.6, find what they need, and then do the rebuild in 8.2. This had been going smoothly until they encountered a media set spread across multiple tapes. They would set the first tape to rebuild and it would go until it finished and started asking for the next tape. We then eject the first tape, insert the next in the set, wait for it to recognize in Retrospect, and then click add. At this point it just hangs there not doing much of anything. I've tried clicking add several times to no avail. The only button that seems to work is "Finish". Restoring each tape one at a time seems like an OK workaround, but then we're left with split media sets. Anyone have any thoughts on how to resolve this issue? Let me know if you need any more information. Thanks. -Dave Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rhwalker Posted August 18, 2010 Report Share Posted August 18, 2010 What SCSI HBA (card) are you using? Some have issues. ATTO UL5D (or UL5D Low Profile) is suggested. If so, have you updated the ATTO firmware? Some versions have issues. Have you tried running the Tandberg diagnostics? Russ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nmhtech10 Posted August 18, 2010 Author Report Share Posted August 18, 2010 Russ, thanks for the tip. We currently have full control through the Tandberg Deck Utility and can Rebuild/Restore from single tapes without a problem. That said, I think I was able to find a solution last night. When we were prompted to add the next tape, I ejected the previous one using the eject button in Retrospect vs. the one on the deck. After putting in the new tape, it spooled up, Retrospect locked on to it, and the rebuild continued without issue. It looks like using the eject button on the deck severs Retrospect's control over it. This causes the software to report that it has lost communication with the deck and the rebuild fails. I'll be going back today to make sure everything finished fine. Definitely a strange little quirk of the software. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rhwalker Posted August 18, 2010 Report Share Posted August 18, 2010 Ok, that makes it clearer. Perhaps if you had an autoloader (rather than just the raw deck), things would work more smoothly. I suspect that the testing may only have been done on autoloader-equipped tape drives, because that's what most people (and we) have. Consider getting an autoloader. In combination with barcoded tapes, it will change your life. Really. It's the only way to do tape. Just fill up the autoloader and let things fly. Russ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nmhtech10 Posted August 18, 2010 Author Report Share Posted August 18, 2010 Oh believe me I know. We have an 8 tape auto-loader we use for testing. The client on the other hand decided they only needed the single drive. Fortunately the largest backup set they have is 3 tapes. Its slow going, but at least its working now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rhwalker Posted August 18, 2010 Report Share Posted August 18, 2010 I'm sure that they spent as much on your time tracking this (and other issues) down as would have been spent on an autoloader. Russ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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