To answer the question you asked... Nope, marking it as "Unavailable"
will not have the desired effect of causing a new backup of those files
from the client node. You've got to get rid of their entries from the
database in order to get a fresh backup. So if AUDIT VOL, MOVE DATA, or
RECOVER (from copypool) don't work, you've got to DELETE VOL
DISCARDDATA=YES in order to get that fresh backup you want.

When I DELETE VOL, I always check the nodes whose data is on the volume
to see if they back up daily, such as via the client scheduler, and if
they do not I send them email asking them to run a backup manually. If
it looks like they're on the scheduler, I don't bother them.

I just had a case of a bad tape yesterday. I can usually coax the data
off of the failing tape by trying to mount it on different drives, etc.
Cleaning the drive (with DLT at least) is unnecessary and prematurely
wears out the heads. Sometimes you just have to MOVE DATA several times
to get all the data. If it says it ended successfully, but there is
still data on it with Q CONTENT, simply try MOVE DATA again several
times before giving up. I don't know why MOVE DATA sometimes leaves data
behind, but it does, even if there are no errors. (So you are not insane
to simply try the same thing over again, two or three times.) Also wait
a little while after MOVE DATA or AUDIT VOL completes for the database
to completely figure out what has just happened. Sometimes if I wait 15
minutes those files go away by themselves. I don't know why any of this
occurs - I'm just your humble reporter on this topic.

When using MOVE DATA to get the data off of failing media, BE SURE to
set REUSEDELAY to at least 1 (day) on the tape storage pool. TSM has an
uncanny ability to pick bad scratch tapes to write new data onto right
after they've been released into the tapepool by MOVE DATA. The
reusedelay gives you a chance to get the bad scratch tape out of your
library and replace it (or at least mark it as Status=Private) before it
gets reused.

Roger Deschner      University of Illinois at Chicago     rogerd AT uic DOT edu
========== Insanity is doing the same thing over and over... ===========
========== and expecting the results to be different - Anon. ===========


On Sun, 7 Dec 2003 07:32:10 +0200
Robert Ouzen <rouzen AT UNIV.HAIFA.AC DOT IL> wrote:

> Hi to all
>
> I had a volume with errors reading did on it an audit volume and move data
> but still data on it (those process required a lot of cleaning the drive ,
> by the way the drive is working fine ?.).
>
> I know that if I delete this volume (discardd=yes) the next backup Tsm
> will backup the files was stored on this volume,  my question is if I turn
> the volume "Unavailable" did TSM will do the same ??..
>
> Regards
>
> Ouzen Robert
> E-Mail: rouzen AT univ.haifa.ac DOT il