Restore from tape drive (tar).

[dpavlov]

Hello!
I made a backup to the tape drive of all system using tar -cvf command.
Yesterday my HDD died. Is it possible to restore system from this tape to the new HDD?
I have HP-UX 10.20. Please help!

[Pete Randall · Accepted solution]

Which HDD died? Your root drive? Is the system still running? If so, you can run tar to restore the lost entities from your tape. If not, you're going to re-install the Operating System first, then use the tape to restore what you need.


Pete

[Rick Garland]

You have an Ignite tape?

Re-Ignite to get an up and running OS then use the tar tape to get back eveything else.

No Ignite. Load the OS on a system and then use the tar tape.

Either way, you need a working OS to restore files from a tar tape. Once you have the working OS you can restore what you need from the tape.

[Leif Halvarsson_2]

Hi,
Not direct, you must restore the tape on a different system (or, boot on a different disk). Then you must create the volumes and filesystem , make the disk bootable etc. before restoring the data. Then it is possible to boot on the new disk.

Tar is not intended for system backup, HP provides Ignite (make_tape_recovery, make_net_recovery) for that purpouse.

[dpavlov]

My root drive died. :(
So i can't boot. Had I to recreate all partitions with their old sizes(I don't member it :( )?

[dpavlov]

Unfortunately it was not ignite backup. Just tar.

[Pete Randall]

A simple tar tape will not help you to re-create your root disk. You will have to re-install.


Pete

[Devender Khatana]

Hi,

Go ahead with installing freshly. Once done you can start restoration.

While installing OS it will automatically take default file sizes for OS related file systems. For only application related file systems you need to define.

How many total disks are there in system ?

If more than one and other are having data that can be imported using vgimport command without need to restore.

HTH,
Devender

[dpavlov]

1HDD, Standart volumes+1 (created by me)
After fresh install if the new volumes will be a little bigger will it be possible to restore data to these volumes? (I'd like to restore everything) Will the system boot normaly after restore? The initial volume sizes will be different in backup and after the fresh install.
PS. Sorry for my english. :)

[Devender Khatana]

Hi,

You should take default file system sizes for the OS file systems and create one file system with any name in the whole rest disk with any name. Once system is up and you have configured tape drive you can display the contents of tape using tar -tvf /dev/rmt/0mn (Where 0mn in your device file for tape).

From it you can find the mount point of your file system prior to failure. Once done mount new file system on that path and restore backup for that mount point.

Tar backup should not be used for restoring OS. Instead you can use a few specific files if required which are related to OS configuration.

HTH,
Devender

[dpavlov]

Thank you Devender, I'll try it and write the results.
But if on my tar tape volume sizes will be smaller(all volumes sizes were user defined), than on new disk, will the system work fine after restore? I mean, will HP-UX restored from tar work fine with new volume sizes(different from those on old HP-UX on the tape)?
The restore process must be done in single user mode?

[Mouad_1]

Salam
There are no volumes defined in your tar tape, the tar just cumulate files and directories recursively.
You're new File system size have to be big enough to restore data from tape, that's all.
Any way re-install hp-ux (from original cd or ignite) and when OS is up, you can then restore specific file from the tape.
The restore can be done in muli-users mode.

[Mahesh Kumar Malik]

Hi dpavlov

Install minimum OS using install media with new desired file system sizes and then restore everything from tape

Regards
Mahesh