Topic: Verifying Tape Backups

[Danny Wong]

How can I verify that my tape backup is working properly.  I see the cron job in the cron log, but I am unsure how to verify that there were no errors etc.  Can I mount the tape drive and view the contents?

I am using a HP colorado 8gig drive.

Thanks

[Dan Williams]

The only way, in my opinion, is to test restoring something.
If you are using the flexbackup program, it e-mails a log to the admin acct.
Dan

[Danny Wong]

I get "Back Up aborted, no tape loaded"  yet the tape IS in the drive.  Do I need to mount the tape or configure it in some special way in order to use this drive?  Again it is a HP Colorado 8 gig drive.

[Dan Williams]

Hi,
There you have it, it is clearly not working.
I am not a wizard on this, and can only suggest that you need to find out if the E-Smith supports that drive. (I do not know where to find out, perhaps someone on this forum will offer an answer)
As one option, did you try configuring tape backup through the server manager interface? If the drive is supported, experiment setting the times in a fashion that you can observe what is happening.
Dan

[Ed Form]

Danny Wong wrote:
>
> I get "Back Up aborted, no tape loaded"  yet the tape IS in
> the drive.  Do I need to mount the tape or configure it in
> some special way in order to use this drive?  Again it is a
> HP Colorado 8 gig drive.

Although I've no doubt people will post that they are having no trouble with these drives, they are simply not up to the daily backup routine used by SME. They all fail after a while.

But to add to the problem, versions of SME since 5.1.2 are hopeless at using these drives. In some cases they are identified and work OK for a while, but they all eventually come up with exactly the message you are getting. Chuck it in the bin and either backup to one of your workstations or fit a DAT drive.

Ed Form

[Brian Barber]

I used the links from a message in another related thread (http://forums.contribs.org/index.php?topic=16129.msg62243#msg62243) that directed me to a HOWTO at this site (http://myezserver.com/downloads/mitel/howto/idetape-howto.html).  I'm about to see if my IDE tape drive is up to the challenge and I'll be using these directions.

Please let us know how it turns out.

BB