ntbackup question

[scottf03]

We use the ntbackup command for our nightly backups on a few compaq servers.

My problem is this:

One of the servers has recently started to overload one tape, i.e. the backup stops (almost at the end) and asks for a second tape. A few times, the back-up was not continued.....the tape was changed for the next night and the next night back-up started ok.

My problem is that I need to restore a file from one of the nights when the back-up didn't completely finish. When I try to catalog the tape under the backup program in NT, it asks for the second tape after a while. Since there is no second tape, it won't catalog any of the drive letters, even ones that the log shows as completly backed-up.

Any ideas how I can get the restore function to work with this tape?

Thanks in advance for your advise.

 

[comtec17]

You will not be able to restore a file from an incomplete backup. The reason being is that at the end of the backup, the database info on that backup is written at the end of the tape.

However, the backup is written in MTF format so there might be some costly utilities out there that may be able to get the info off the tape.

 

[WindowsWoes]

You *can* restore files from an incomplete backup set, so your one tape is sufficient. However you will need to catalog the whole tape and it will take a long time.

Below is an extract from the help telling you how its done:

If you have all of the tapes in the backup set, and the tapes are not damaged or corrupted, click the Tools menu, click Options, click the General tab, and then make sure the Use the catalogs on the media to speed up building restore catalogs on disk check box is selected. This will speed up the cataloging process.
If you are missing a tape in the backup set, or a tape is damaged or corrupted, click the Tools menu, click Options, click the General tab, and then make sure the Use the catalogs on the media to speed up building restore catalogs on disk check box is cleared. This will ensure that the catalog is complete and accurate; however, it could take a long time to create the catalog.