"Drive is not responding. Backup set aborted." 1

[packdragon]

I get this message pretty frequently now, but only during the full backups. Normal backups seem to run just fine. Veritas technotes regarding this issue are very vague and mention bad network cards and network settings. Doesn't say anything about how to check for anything specific. Any of you have experience on dealing with this error? Why does this happen only for full backups and not the incremental ones? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

- Zoe, that's ZOH-EEE, get it right please
- Just a little ol' MCP at Solien Technology
-

http://www.solien.com

 

[DarraghFitzpatrick]

Can be caused by bad tape, bad drive, unclean tape heads.

U usally one would start at the bottom then up, if your server cannot be brought down now, I woulod start at the top and the down i.e clean your drive, download diagnostics for your tape drive and run read, read-write tests etc. If your manafucturer has new firmware install it (chech with your manufacturer first). Ensure you have the latest SCSI drivers for your controller. Ensure you have the latest RomBios for your server.
When this error occurred on my server, it was (a) bad media (b) drity drive heads

 

[dogmata]

Check for I/O errors in the event viewer system logs (ID's 7,9 , 11 15) > if you are getting these its hardware. These are SCSI timeouts. Check your Changer and tape units Target ID,s >> avoid ID 0,1 or 6 > make sure the changer has a lower priority than the tape unit(s) >> update your SCSI drivers > try oem drivers to rule out a problem with the veritas driver (if installed) >> reduce the transfer rate in the SCSI bios, disable wide negotiation, check cable, termination etc etc

Hope this helps, but let me know
Dog

 

[packdragon]

I made a wee mistake in my post. I meant that Incrementals run just fine, while the Normal full backups have this error occur. Thanks Dogmata for those great tips. I will be sure to try them out. I'll try to remember to post any results that I find.

I wonder though, are the incremental backups running error-free because there is less data?

- Zoe, that's ZOH-EEE, get it right please
- Just a little ol' MCP at Solien Technology
-

http://www.solien.com

 

[dogmata]

Packdragon:

= check for those I/O's > chances are you havent got any as BE will normally log an I/O error in the job log, also known as a semaphore error

= what are you backing up and where ie. local or remote, OS level on remote (incl SP), servers in same domain as the media server etc.

= Version and build of BE ?

= if you backing up exchange, sql etc etc are you using an agent yo back it up online ?

= did it work in the past ? if it did were there any software/hardware changes made ?

= it sounds like its possibly remote ? if so check remote's Event Viewers (sys and apps)..Are ther any clues (dont have to come directly from BE)

= do the inc. run at different times that the fulls ? If so is there something active on remote ie. maintenence tasks, which are not running when inc. are running (errors do not have to come from BE necessarily)

= virus scanner on there > try a backup with AV services stopped.

= does an incremental work if you target it to your hard drive (via a backup-to-disk folder) ?

= Depending on version of BE, are you using a backup method which resets the archive bit or via change journal/modified time ?

= is the raid array reporting any I/O's

= if you are using certain tapes for the incr. jobs could this tape be faulty, check the drive stats (devices tab from BE ), see if you are getting a lot of hard/read etc errors.

Cheers
Dog