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naming/renaming tape


jfaraco

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I'm sure this is simple for one of you. I am running retrospect 7.0 on Windows XP 64 bit. I don't have a cs background.

I started a backup of huge data files that spanned two tapes-and 24 hours. When the program began the verification stage, it spit out the second tape and asked for the first one again "insert tape 1-blah-backup-blah" . When I inserted the first tape for verification, I realized that retrospect had not named the tape, and it was still Untitled. So retrospect apparently has no clue that this is the tape with the first part of my data leaving me stuck in the middle of my backup.

 

Q: is my data really on that full tape- and if it's unnamed, how could it be accessed? how do I give it the name that Retrospect should have given it ("1-blah-backup-blah") ? do I have to start over?

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It should be named. Retrospect writes a header on an erased tape before it starts writing to the tape. The convention that it uses is:

N-backupsetname [xxx]

Where N is member name of this tape in the backup set named "backupsetname", and xxx is an auto-incremented (optional) number that Retrospect adds when it skips to a new backup set.

 

See page 25 of the Retrospect 7.0 User's Guide:

http://kb.dantz.com/utility/getfile.asp?rid=116

 

What happens if you put the tape in and let Retrospect see what name the tape has?

 

Once a backup set has been named, the name cannot be changed (nor can the names of its members). You can, however, erase these tapes and start over. Enjoy.

 

russ

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Thanks for the reply.

What happens when I put the tape in is that it thinks it is "Untitled" and asks me if "1-blah backup" is really lost. So no, Retrospect did not apparently name the tape. I don't want to rename the backup set, I want the software to realize it is the right tape.

 

The second thing that happens is as follows:

I do an eject of the tape, and put it back in. At this point, it says the drive is empty, and an error light comes on on the tape drive, and the tape won't come out by a software eject or a hardware eject pressing the eject button.

 

Thus leading to a whole different potential thread. Retrospect 7.0 with my tape drive plays this little "drive empty" game nearly 50% of the time with me- always happening when it has ejected a tape and asks me for another one (ie, a problem only when backups span multiple tapes). I'm not manhandling the equipment. This is a huge problem for me since all of my backups are enormous data sets and always span multiple tapes. At times, all I can do is a full shutdown of the PC in order for it to spit out my tape. This is probably what I have to do right now.

 

 

Since this is the first "untitled" problem, I don't think it is related at all to the very common tape jam problem.

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The drive is a PowerVault 110T LTO2-L drive (200/400) from Dell. I'm using Fuji film LTO Ultrium 2 tapes. It appears on your list of certified drives. The problem is incredibly common when swapping tapes during backup or verification. Who knows, maybe my original It guy put the wrong controller (32 bit not 64? ??).

 

In this particular case, after a complete power off and restart and having also removed the tape and put in again, Retrospect did recognize it finally as the appropriately named tape. So I guess it is a new twist on the tape jam issue.

 

 

thanks,

J

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