When the tape is loaded (assuming that it has been written to before),
you can use vmoprcmd or device monitor in the GUI to see what tape is
loaded (by looking at the recorded ID).

If you are only wanting to keep one copy of the backup, then expire the
tape loaded.  Not the safest or smartest way to do this.

2 suggestions:
1.  Have 4 tapes that are labeled (for human viewing) Week A, Week B,
..,Week D.  Have your policy set with a retention rate of 3 weeks.  Tell
them to rotate the tapes based on the external label.  You can also
write the tape ID with NB by labeling the tape.  Have your backup end
script to suspend the tape at the conclusion of the backup.

2.  Don't use NB to do the backups.  Since you are not managing a tape
library, it would seem cheaper to just use the backup feature of Win2k.
It works. 



Bobby Williams
Senior Systems Engineer
GTSI Corp, State and Local, Southeast
4250-A Benton Drive
Chattanooga, Tennessee  37406
Phone: 423-624-2600
Pager: 423-819-3336
Fax: 423-629-9669

-----Original Message-----
From: veritas-bu-admin AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu
[mailto:veritas-bu-admin AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu] On Behalf Of Zermeno,
Brandon (Contractor)
Sent: Wednesday, January 12, 2005 10:46 AM
To: Wayne T Smith; veritas-bu AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu
Subject: RE: [Veritas-bu] Stand-alone drives

Well the problem is that I don't know what tape they are putting in the
drive or even how they are labeled. Veritas has over 50 media id's
available in it. I was hoping for something that involves less
maintenance on my part.
Usually they replace the tape on Wednesday or Thursday for the Full
during the weekend, then append to the tape during the week with the
incremental. 

-----Original Message-----
From: veritas-bu-admin AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu
[mailto:veritas-bu-admin AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu] On Behalf Of Wayne T
Smith
Sent: Wednesday, January 12, 2005 10:28 AM
To: veritas-bu AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu
Subject: Re: [Veritas-bu] Stand-alone drives

If NetBackup is trying to write to tape #6, then #6 is not full and it's

trying to append to the data already on the tape.

If you wish to make a tape unavailable for writing until its data
expires, "suspend" it with the bpmedia command.

cheers, wayne

Zermeno, Brandon (Contractor) wrote, in part,  on 1/12/2005 10:13 AM:

> I have several stand alone, non-barcode reading, tape drives. They run

> on Win 2k, NBU 4.5fp7. Right now tape #2 is in the drive, when the 
> backup starts it is looking for #6. Now tape #6 is not expired and can

> not be written over, Tape #2 IS expired. Why is it looking for that 
> specific tape id? How can I circumvent this? The units in question are

> overseas and there is quite the language barrier, So I cant really ask

> them to keep changing out tapes every time the backup runs.
>
> Any ideas?
>
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