Autoloader 2nd tape question

[frikkin]

Has anyone encountered the error message
"The media provided to continue the backup already contains data from one or more sets created during this operation.
The operation cannot be continued"

This is using backup exec 8.6 and a HP surestore autoloader 1/8. I use 2 tapes a night for the backup.

The first tape seems to back up okay but looks as if it is trying to append to the second tape rather than overwrite it.

Is there a setting i am missing (or is this a case of setting overwrite recyclable media contained in the target media set before overwriting scratch media)

I tried looking up previous threads but they werent very clear.

Cheers.

 

[DavrosDalek]

How big is your backup job ? Too big to fit on two tapes will cause this error.

Dalek

 

[SQLBill]

Based on your error message, this is what appears to be happening (one the following two)

1. The job begins and fills up tape one, then goes to tape two and fills that up, then goes to tape one and fails because tape one already contains data from this job.

2. The job begins and fills up a tape and then instead of changing tapes, it attempts to reuse the same tape and fails because the tape already contains data from this job.

Check out to see which of the two possibilities is happening, then:

1. use more tapes to ensure that there are enough for the backup you are doing.

2. find out why it's trying to reuse the tape and get it to continue to the unused tape.

-SQLBill

 

[frikkin]

Guys,
Did a bit of experimenting last night.

I ran an inventory on 2 new tapes - did a quick erase on the 2nd tape and let it run as normal. This seems to have done the trick. im hoping i wont have to do this every day from now on, just until i get through all the tapes once.

After doing a bit of reading i found a document which mentions the 'changer inventory' report. There is a field called 'full' which has different error codes, 0, 1, 2 or 3.

my status was 3 which meant that there was an error with the tape which had forced the media to be read with the end of media marks on both sides. the media may not be appended to.

by running the re-inventory and erasing it se the full field back to 0.

check out

http://seer.support.veritas.com//docs/191911.htm

for more details.

hope this helps someone else!