Restoring from VXA-2 tape drive

[John Mathapha]

Hi,

 

I need help restoring from VXA-2 tape drive. Can I restore from a backup VXA-2 tape? And what is the correct way restoring from a tape backup? Everytime I pop in the tape, Retrospect 6.0 cleans the tape. I only have one backup tape left that has the data I need. Can someone assist?

 

Specs:

 

Dell PowerEdge 600SC

Window 2000 Server

Extabyte VXA-1 2122 scisi - manual load

Retrospect 6.0 for windows Full version

 

Thanks,

 

John

[rhwalker]

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I need help restoring from VXA-2 tape drive. Can I restore from a backup VXA-2 tape?

 

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We've been doing that for almost three years with our Exabyte VXA-2 1x10 1u PacketLoader (SCSI). We use the Macintosh version of Retrospect, but it doesn't sound like your problem is platform related.

 

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And what is the correct way restoring from a tape backup?

 

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Depends on how much you are trying to restore. But it's a rather straightforward process. Did Retrospect create the backup tape? What version? Do you have a Retrospect catalog for that backup set?

 

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Everytime I pop in the tape, Retrospect 6.0 cleans the tape.

 

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Never seen that. I think you are seeing something else instead. (see below) What do you mean "Retrospect 6.0 "cleans the tape""?

 

Step 1: Write protect your tapes. There is no way the drive, or Retrospect, can do anything to the VXA-2 tapes if the cartridges are write protected.

 

Everything else below assumes that Retrospect made the backup tapes, and that you have a Retrospect catalog for the backup set.

 

Step 2: Launch Retrospect, put the tape in the drive. What does Retrospect show for the tape's name?

 

Here's what I think is happening, based on what I have seen with our Exabyte VXA-2 / PacketLoader. There are some versions of the Exabyte firmware that have marginal error recovery routines. This is complicated by a batch of marginal tapes that Exabyte shipped last summer. When the combination of marginal tapes and marginal error recovery routines interact, when you insert the tape, the tape drive gives an error at BOT. If you look at the revision history for the Exabyte VXA-2 firmware, you can see that their programmers have been struggling with error issues at BOT, and have been doing various hacks to avoid errors at BOT. If your tape has soft errors at BOT, well, at this point you can't get around that, but you can try to minimize.

 

Whenever the Exabyte drive reports read errors at BOT, Retrospect seems to report (falsely) that the tape is "erased". The solution is to eject the tape and insert a VXA-2 tape cleaning cartridge, do a cleaning cycle or two. Then try the tape again. I've been able to use that process to get the tapes to be readable at BOT. Once they are successfully able to be loaded, you will be able to proceed from there.

 

I turned in a bug report a year or so ago to EMC about the false detection of "erased" tapes on Exabyte drives, but I haven't seen any attempt to address this. My best suggestion is to write protect any tapes before starting the restore process, to protect yourself against mistakes.

 

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I only have one backup tape left that has the data I need. Can someone assist?

 

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Again, write protect the tape. I doubt that Retrospect has "cleaned" (erased?) your tapes unless you explicitly told it to erase the tapes. I think your data is still there. Try cleaning your drive with a cleaning cartridge.

 

Russ