Arcserve 2000 cancelling backup -----PLEASE HELP!!!

[Warders]

I wonder if anybody has seen a problem as weird as this. I have a server with two partions C: and E:. I have been having problems recently with all the backup jobs cancelling and the following errors appearing:

E6096 Media Error

E6915 The media is from a faulty batch or the tape drive is faulty etc.

W6906 The operation has stopped because an error has occured reading or writing data which the drive cannot correct.

E3714 Unable to write to media (EC=Unrecoverable media error).

The backup has been failing for a while now, but it always backs up the C: partition ok, and puts out all the error messages and cancels the backup when it starts to backup E:. I know it is not the media , as we have tried new tapes, and we have also replaced the tape unit twice within the week.

Can anyone help, I am at the end of my tether


Many Thanks

 

[alphaes40]

hi, I am from Mexico.

I wonder if you can help me, I have troubles with arcserve2000 too.

my problem is:

¿how can use only one media for all my backups, full and incremental?

I have a robot from Compaq model TL891 Storage Works.

I don´t have much medias to use them.

 

[alphaes40]

hi, I am from Mexico.

I wonder if you can help me, I have troubles with arcserve2000 too.

my problem is:

¿how can use only one media for all my backups, full and incremental?

I have a robot from Compaq model TL891 Storage Works.

I don´t have much medias to use them.

pd.


thanks for this help.

 

[nat3tenp]

I too have the same problem. I have tried new tapes, updated the bios on the SCSI card, upgraded to Arcserve 2000. I still can't figure out the problem.

 

[cdav]

Just a thought - have you tried changing the priority of the backups ie backing up the e: drive first, or even doing a 'special' backup and back up the e: drive alone? This may at least give you an idea whether it is specifically to do with the e: drive, or whether this is a coincidence.

I have had problems in the past where a small test backup works ok on a faulty drive, but a normal backup fails.

cdav

 

[FootWedge]

I had a similar problem with BackupExec, I tried everything else I could think of! I finally had to delete the backup job, and recreate it. And then it ran fine.

FootWedge s-)

 

[Shad007]

Sounds like the problem lies with your DLT drive...run a cleaner tape a couple of times through it and try again...

 

[Peteksi]

I agree with what was said:

1) Run a cleaner tape if you haven't already.

2) Always create a new job if an existing one is giving you trouble. And in the new job just back up the existing E: or trouble volume.

3) Call CA with the error codes if 1 and 2 don't work.

For our Mexican friends: Don't waste your time with Incremental backups. They suck. You need ALL the incrementals after a good full just to restore one file- what a joke. And Arcserve is too bug-ridden to ensure a SET of backup tapes is going to be a) not lost or seperate b) they don't always all merge correctly c) multi-tape set restores are prone to too many arcserve errors.

Better idea is to use a rotating schedule of FULL backups if you can afford the DLTs. Try a GFS rotation with DIFFERENTIAL backups instead of incremental. The difference is a DIFFERENTIAL will get only the modified files in ONE TAPE. An INCREMENTAL will need a full backup plus as many days incrementals as it takes from the full to get to the day you need the file from. This is insane and will fail to restore/merge 75% or more of the time.

The way I do it here is with a massive TL-895. We do fulls every day on everything, keep 90 days worth of tapes and then start overwriting (keeping month end tapes forver). (we should have bought stock in FUJI for all the DLTs we use too).

Please don't kill yourself with incrementals. You don't have to use GFS either as it complains about "not in backup set" and will fail your jobs, etc. Just set up a custom rotation using differential and do not use a media pool name. Schedule your calender correct for when the full backups occur and use append to medio option in the job setup.

Then the tapes will just keep appending (adding) to existing tapes until they are full and then go to the next tape in the set. As long as you properly set up the media pool, the job and use the right append/media control options, you can be very thrifty with the tapes and pack them tight with info.

Good luck,

 

[Electro]

Alphaes,

Drop me an email and I'll see if I can help you design a proper backup solution. We also have a Compaq TL891 unit and I have custom designed backups for this and other tape library units in many different ways. I'll need some specific information regarding your setup.

Darryl.Brambilla@eds.com

Thanks,

Darryl