NetBackup exclude backup selection

Was the /export directory hosted via NFS?

If so, check your policy to see if you had the Follow NFS Mounts option checked in the policy attributes. If the /exports directory was mounted via NFS AND that option was not checked, then that policy may not have been backing up that directory.

Now, given the above, hopefully you were backing up the machine that the files were hosted on and they are available from there.

Otherwise, I am not sure that there is much you can do other than reviewing the logs for that client on the master server to see if it was processing that directory during backups.

If the tapes have 'expired' then you will need to re-import them into the catalog (which is an index of what is on what tape). I think this is what has happened, and unless you have a backup of that catalog I'm afraid you are going to have to go through tape by tape. This is a two step process (or a two phase process a Symantec calls it).

The first part is to scan the tapes to find the image you need, you then need to import that image so it is ready for backup. So use phase 1 to find the backup running it on each tape, and then phase 2 once you have found it. The second phase can take a while. The instructions are located here, and I recommend you use the command line method as that has worked well for me in the past. The highlights are:

To start a phase 1 import from the command line run the command:

# cd /usr/openv/netbackup/bin/admincmd
# ./bpimport -create_db_info -id <disk_path> -L /usr/tmp/phase1.log

Enter the disk path to use for the import. Then, monitor the /usr/tmp/phase1.log file to monitor the progress of the phase 1 import.

To start a phase 2 import from the command line run the command:

# cd /usr/openv/netbackup/bin/admincmd
# ./bpimport -id <disk_path> -s <startdate> -e <enddate> -L /usr/tmp/phase2.log

I also strongly recommend you flick the hardware lock on each tape to be sure you don't overwrite these images with another backup.

Also, in the future you will want to change the "retention period" on the tapes so the backups remain in the catalog (not sure about your question as to removing the client removes from the catalog, but in case it wasn't infinity). The levels are:

Retention    Retention     Equivalent
 Level         Period          Days
---------          -----------         ----------
   0             1 week               7        
   1             2 weeks           14       
   2             3 weeks           21       
   3             1 month           31       
   4             2 months         62       
   5             3 months         93       
   6             6 months        186      
   7             9 months        279      
   8             1 year            365      
   9             infinity   

After you import the tape, you can set the images on this tape to never expire with:

/usr/openv/netbackup/bin/admincmd/bpexpdate -ev B00010 -d infinity  

All my commands are unix examples but they should be the same or similar in Windows, also, the link I provided above shows how to do the import with the gui as well.