Rescanning

The information about the contents of tapes is stored in a dedicated database. The rescanning operation reads the contents of tapes and updates the database if the information in it mismatches the data stored on tapes. The backups detected as a result of the operation are placed in the specified pool.

Within one operation, you can rescan tapes of one pool. Only online tapes can be selected for the operation.

To rescan tapes with a multistreamed or both multistreamed and multiplexed backup, you need at least the same number of drives that were used to create this backup. Such a backup cannot be rescanned through a stand-alone tape drive.

Run the rescanning:

• If the database of a storage node or managed machine is lost or damaged.
• If information about a tape in the database is out of date (for example, a tape contents were modified by another storage node or agent).
• To obtain access to backups stored on tapes when working under bootable media.
• If you have mistakenly removed the information about a tape from the database. When you rescan a removed tape, the backups stored on it reappear in the database and become available for data recovery.
• If backups were deleted from a tape either manually or through retention rules but you want them to become accessible for data recovery. Before rescanning such a tape, eject it, remove the information about it from the database, and then insert the tape into the tape device again.

To rescan tapes

1. Click Settings > Tape management.
2. Select the machine or the storage node to which your tape device is attached, and then click Tape devices under this machine.
3. Select the tape device you loaded the tapes to.

4. Perform the fast inventorying.

   During the inventorying, do not enable the Move unrecognized and imported tapes to the 'Free tapes' pool switch.

5. Select the Unrecognized tapes pool. This is the pool to which most of the tapes are sent as a result of the fast inventorying. Rescanning any other pool is also possible.
6. [Optional] To rescan only individual tapes, select them.
7. Click Rescan.
8. Select the pool where the newly detected backups will be placed.

9. If necessary, select the Enable file recovery from disk backups stored on tapes check box.

   Details. If the check box is selected, the software will create special supplementary files on a hard disk of the machine where the tape device is attached. File recovery from disk backups is possible as long as these supplementary files are intact. Be sure to select the check box if the tapes contain application-aware backups. Otherwise, you will not be able to recover the application data from these backups.

10. If the tapes contain password-protected backups, select the corresponding check box, and then specify the password for the backups. If you do not specify a password, or the password is incorrect, the backups will not be detected. Please keep this in mind in case you see no backups after the rescanning.

    Tip. If the tapes contain backups protected by various passwords, you need to repeat the rescanning several times specifying each password in turn.

11. Click Start rescan to start the rescanning.

Result. The selected tapes are moved to the selected pool. The backups stored on the tapes can be found in this pool. A backup spread over several tapes will not appear in the pool until all of these tapes are rescanned.