VMS backup

[Uwe Zessin]

Antonio,
you have misunderstood my comment (or I expressed it badly).

The purpose of the /LOG qualifier in my example was to receive a message like:

%BACKUP-I-NEWSAVSET, now beginning save set 'A.BCK'

(I don't have a tape drive, so I have tried to construct that message. Apologies if it looks different.)

[Chris Davis_9]

Hi Tony,

I'm sorry that I don't know of any command apart from those listed to confirm the existence of the save sets and their names. I usually use BACK/LIST TAPE: if I need to, then Ctrl^O to turn off display. Our save sets have pre-determined names with a date element and these are documented in our DR procedures, so once the first save-set date is known, all other save-set names are known.

When you got the ODS2 incompatible message, was the machine you were restoring onto booted with a prior version of VMS? This sometimes happens in a DR situation when the hardware provider hasn't upgraded or just happens to be booted from a prior version.

You would then get the warning message because the system recognises that the disk you are preparing would not be mountable on the system (as it's currently running a prior version).

It's worth ensuring that your DR provider has your current version of VMS booted for recovery purposes, there have been differences between the backup command in prior versions of VMS, not usually show stoppers, but perhaps with default values or actions.

As already pointed out, this is an informational message only and shouldn't stop the restore taking place. I always use the /LOG qualifier to ensure the restore is happening, then again turn off the display with Ctrl^O.

I've been doing DR tests on VMS since 1986, so feel free to contact me offline. My email is chris.davis@pmas.co.uk

Hope this helps for future recoveries!