Data Protector Express - "Wrong Media" for Autorotation

[jstein12]

Please help! I installed a new internal HP Ultrium 2 448 drive in our Dell Server and HP's Storageworks Tools say the drive works fine and is installed properly. The details of my problem are:

-When using the wizard to setup an "auto-rotate" backup job, I select the Simple-12 to run 4-daily, 4-weekly, 4 monthly backups. When it runs, it spits out the media and says "wrong media type". If I use "no rotation" it still spits it out.

-I am using HP Ultrium 2 tapes P/N C7972A, which I formatted successfully, just in case that was the problem.

-I have updated the drive firmware to the latest, 53D (I think)

-I can run "manual" file backups fine.

Am I trying to lump to many things into one job (i.e. auto run daily/weekly/monthly within one "job")?

Your help is greatly appreciated!

[Jaclyn Rothe]

You should be configuring a back up for daily back ups
a back up for weekly back ups
and a back up for monthly back ups

'Wrong Media' usually means the media set you configured to run with that job is different then the media you are inserting

Example:
I set up Monday's back up with a mondya tape and on tuesday I accidentally inserted a monday tape... the drive would recognize that the tuesday tape is not in the drive and would eject it.

This is a security feature of the software to prevent accidentally over writing the wrong tape.

If you do not care what day the media is written on... you can choose the option in the back up job to "over-write all" media and it will do the back up regardless of what tape is inserted in the drive. This may mean it writes over data you DID NOT want written over. But configuring backups this way will result in less errors... and labelling tapes efficiently will prevent this from happening.

I would recommend always running a full back up, selecting 'auto format all' media and 'over-write' all media when first learning how to schedule jobs. This requires good book keeping on the end0users part but will result in less errors and back up failures due to incorrect tapes if the end user puts the wrong tape in for the wrong day.

Please let me know if you have any further questions about Data Protector Express (DPX).

[jstein12]

Jaclyn,

Thanks for your help.

I understand exactly what you're describing. My only concern is that it was spitting out a brand new tape that should have been the first in the series. I can't see how I could have put in the wrong one. Is there a way to reset the tape catalog? I tried to set up an automatic daily job, but it still spits out the tapes.

I was hoping that I would be able to lump the daily/weekly/monthly into one job. I assumed that was the purpose of picking the simple-12, etc. tape rotation method. Scheduling-wise, it really did seem as though it would follow through correctly; it showed the correct preemptive approach (yearly before monthly before weekly before daily).

In the meantime, I've configured a separate daily/weekly/monthly as you suggest and will be performing these manually until I can get the "auto" part straightened out.

As before, your assistance is appreciated.

Jim

[Jaclyn Rothe · Accepted solution]

Jim;

Thank you for your patience in addressing this issue.

It really sounds like a job problem. I had the same issue when I was playing with DPX for the first time, It turned out I had just not selected the correct media for the job properties therefore it was confused (as was I).

DPX is essentially similar to Tapeware... I can not find the document I had for DPX scheduling... but here is one for tapeware that might explain better how media pools work. I will continue looking for the DPX document I had.

Setting Up A Simple Five Day Backup Schedule In TapeWare
http://www.yosemitetech.com/support/wizard/view_kb.aspx?ID=59

Setting Up A Fault Tolerant Schedule In TapeWare (NOTE: this is the type of back up you should configure for the least amount of errors... but it will permit wiritng to 'wrong media' as I mentioned before)
http://www.yosemitetech.com/support/wizard/view_kb.aspx?ID=1374

Tapeware Media Pools Explained (this is a great document)
http://www.yosemitetech.com/support/wizard/view_kb.aspx?ID=1317

I hope this helps in the mean time. Let me know how you get on with the scheduling. I will keep looking ofr more info for you.

Sincerely,

Jaclyn