Poor form to reply to my own post, but I couldn't sleep till I found a
solution.  Its nearly 4am now and I think I have one!

Someone suggested directly to me that I could select from the backups table
and run the unsupported "delete objects" command on each file.  I tested
that on a single file and it seemed to work, but I'm not feeling
comfortable with it for the rather large number of entries I have to
delete.

So how about this? Its like performing surgery with the space shuttle robot
arm but it might just work.

Upgrade to TSM 5.5.  This is necessary anyway.
Set up a second TSM Server on the same box.
Export the exchange data server-to-server from the old server to the new
one using the fromdate/todate parameters to give me the slice of data that
I need.
Repeat as necessary with mergefiles on the import side.
Once a slice has been copied across I can change the retentions on the old
server and expire inventory to delete that slice.
Please feel free to throw in your two cents worth if you can see a flaw in
this

I'm starting to feel like Geordy LaForge in Star Trek TNG ---- "If we just
route the power from the core through to the phaser array"....

Steve.

__________________
>
> Sorry about that - take 2
>

> Hi All

> I have a customer with a small TSM Setup on windows , DB is only 3GB.
TSM is 5.3.4

> Last August the legal eagles decreed that all expiration was to stop, and
my predecessors did this.  We are now at breaking point with a tape library
that > is about to burst, and finally someone (me) decided to do something
about it.

> The majority of the data is exchange backups,  with a twice a week full,
four times a day incremental backup strategy.  Legal has finally decided
that

> We need to keep all backups from the earliest we have to end of August.
>>From end of August to mid Feb we can delete all incrementals and all full
backups except the last one of every month.

>I can see no way of doing this from the exchange client

>using the dsmc client to connect I can see appropriately named files for
full  backups and incrementals when I use the "q backup {filespace}\
-subdir=y"

>Attempting a delete backup of any sort or even a q backup on a fully
qualified name gives me a no files found message

>tsm> q backup  {BLKVMSG001A\BLK1ASG4}\data\0000\BLK1ASG4A250\full
-inactive
> ANS1092W No files matching search criteria were found

>Is there any way around this? or can API -created files only be deleted by
the API?


>Thanks

>Steve

>Steve Harris
>TSM Admin, Sydney Australia