Swapped TL2000 library, have issues with existing pools

[kapple]

Hi,

We are running R&R 9.5 for vSphere. We have a Dell TL2000 tape library, which is attached to a Windows 2012 R2 server. We have had some hardware issues, and Dell sent a new library to us, and we swapped out the old one.
This was not a smooth process, but I was able to get the drive to recognize most of the used media sets and media pools (this was over a month ago, and I don't remember specifically every step I took).

However, we have some more media that I am in the process of cataloging that were also backed up by this same B&R server. They are placed in the appropriate media sets. However, they do not get associated with the appropriate GFS media pools. All these tapes are listed as being in an "Imported" media pool. There are 10 of these so far, and I expect more to come as I finish cataloging them.

I know that if I move the tape to a GFS media pool, the tape will be marked as free, which is not a desired outcome. Is there any way to associate the tapes with a GFS media pool without the tapes being marked free, and erased?

Thank you.

[lyapkost]

Hi Ken. There's no simple way to acheive your goal so I see two solutions. The first is to move tapes to appropriate media pools and catalog them again, though it may take much time. The second is to open a support ticket, our support engineers should be able to help.

[kapple]

Hi Konstantin, and thanks for the reply.
Actually, cataloging the tapes goes quickly enough that I can get several done per hour with the 2 drives in the library. So if I understand you correctly, I can move the tapes to the appropriate GFS media pool. This will mark them as free, but that will not wipe out any actual backup files (I would do this with the write protection tab protecting the tape anyway). Then when I catalog the tape again, it should be in both the correct GFS media pool, as well as the correct media set, correct? My concern is messing up the catalog, but that doesn't sound like an issue if I follow this procedure, correct?

[lyapkost]

Marking tape as free doesn't physically erase data on it, it removes information about it's data from the Veeam database.

Then when I catalog the tape again, it should be in both the correct GFS media pool, as well as the correct media set, correct?

Almost. Moving to the desired media set inside the GFS media pool should be done manually in media pool's advanced settings, it takes seconds, doesn't mark tape as free and may be done either before or after cataloging.