Still having problem with my tapes. CA r12

[iskawt]

Guys, I have this problem with regards on my tapes.

I have 3 sets of tapes Green, Blue and Red.

When I used the Green tapes, everything is smooth and fine.
But when i tried to use the Blue and Red Tapes (We usually change the tapes every month), some errors appeared like

SCSI Tape Error
E6092 Fatal - Uncorrectable Error.

I perform Long Erase on tapes and it works. I can perform a backup but errors appeared again. And now, I have this problem.

SENSE ABSL: 1020 MEDIA ERROR [03]
EX SENSE ABSL:1020 RECORDED ENTITY NOT FOUND [14, 200]
ABSL: 1020 (SCSI SPACE 16777215 BLOCKS)
(03) *** MEDIUM ERROR ***
E6018 RECORDED ENTITY NOT FOUND OR BASIC MEDIA ERROR (14 00)
E6092 FATAL - UNCORRECTABLE ERROR - E6092 FATAL - UNCORRECTABLE ERROR

This is a copy of error that I saw on tape log.

and these are what i saw on activity log.

E6096 *** 01/25/2010 07:38:46 PM MEDIA ErrorBarcode:conflicts with Internal serial Number: in database. Tape is NOT registered in DB.

E6096 *** 01/25/2010 07:38:46 PM Media Error[ABSL: 1020 CMD:8h]


I am wondering why is this happening? We didn't change anything aside from the tapes. We didn't change anything on hardware.


Any suggestions will be appreciated.

Thanks,
iskawt

 

[2ffat]

Are the tapes from the same manufacturer?


James P. Cottingham
[sup]I'm number 1,229!
I'm number 1,229![/sup]

 

[iskawt]

yes they are sir.

I used the Green ( 2009 ) tapes for the month of September.

On October, I can barely used the Red tapes. Some errors occurred.

On December, I can't perform any backup due to these errors.

I bought a new cleaning tape for my drive hoping that if i performed a cleaning, the problem might be solve, but it didn't.

It's been 2 months, and I haven't performed any backup for our files.

Hoping I can gather information to get rid of these errors.

 

[2ffat]

At this point, I would suspect the drive itself. We had a similar problem. Simply put, the tapes tend to wear grooves in the heads. Eventually this wear makes it difficult for the head to read or write newer tapes and eventually, the older tapes, too. Once we replaced the drive, all was well.



James P. Cottingham
[sup]I'm number 1,229!
I'm number 1,229![/sup]

 

[iskawt]

how can i do that sir 2ffat?

How can i put the tapes tend to wear grooves in the heads?

 

[2ffat]

You will have to replace the tape drive.


James P. Cottingham
[sup]I'm number 1,229!
I'm number 1,229![/sup]

 

[iskawt]

okay, i will ask my boss if he has another tape drive that is compatible with our tapes.

Thank you for that suggestion sir.

I'll update this after we change the drive.

 

[iskawt]

sir 2ffat, had you already done that? Replacing the tape drive? If so, did it solve our dilemma?

 

[2ffat]

Yes. We've had to do that on two different drives, one internal and one external. We now have to replace another external drive so we will be doing a third drive.



James P. Cottingham
[sup]I'm number 1,229!
I'm number 1,229![/sup]

 

[iskawt]

and it had a good output? I mean, did it resolve the problem?

One more thing, what could be the culprit of this error on the tape drive so i can explain it to my boss clearly.

 

[iskawt]

Btw, remember i performed Long Erase on the tapes to remedy the SCSI error,I am also wondering why is that our tapes has no serial numbers? I need to put them on the media pool to have their serial numbers individually..

 

[2ffat]

I mean, did it resolve the problem?

Yes

[W]hat could be the culprit of this error on the tape drive so i can explain it to my boss clearly.

Friction from the tapes tends to wear on the heads of the drives. Some of the older drives used to have an adjustment to allow someone to change the "skew" of the head to fix it. Sometimes these were mechanical and others were electrical/software controlled. (On a side note, some early floppy drives had these adjustments, too.) Now they recommend replacing the drives since it is cheaper.

An analogy is rubbing string across a wood dowel. Eventually you can rub a groove in the dowel. This is similar to what is happening to drives.

Also the magnetic tapes tend to do the same thing to the magnetic field of the head, too.

As to your other question, you ought to start another thread.


James P. Cottingham
[sup]I'm number 1,229!
I'm number 1,229![/sup]

 

[iskawt]

yeah, maybe that could be the culprit because its been 1 and a half month since we the last cleaning of our drive. I told my boss that we should purchase a new cleaning tape but he didn't listen to me.

 

[iskawt]

i tried re installing CA to my surprise the tape drive cannot detect the tapes and it shows as <No Media in Drive>. I already updated the firmware version, but still no luck.

 

[2ffat]

Did you run any CA device patches? How about the windows drivers?


James P. Cottingham
[sup]I'm number 1,229!
I'm number 1,229![/sup]

 

[davidmichel]

RECORDED ENTITY NOT FOUND
this means the tape drive is reporting to the Tape Engine that it cannot read what was previously written to the tape.

Could be caused by tapes or drive.

As for the drive reporting empty when a tape is loaded that is a mechanical level failure at the drive.

 

[iskawt]

okay, today i re-installed CA and to my surprised it can't detect my tapes. So i went to computer management and disabled the tapes and drives from the OS. I rebooted the machine, I can now see the tapes. But they are updating for years. It took them hours to update from tape 1 to tape 12 (which is my cleaning tape ). I told my boss that the culprit is in the drive hardware, but he isn't convinced because the drive we're using is the same drive that we used when we performed our very first successful backup.

I am still waiting for the tapes to be finished, i would guess they would display as <Unreadable Media> again. Whew.

 

[iskawt]

@ sir 2ffat

I haven't ran any CA device patches from the first day i used it. Where can i see the patches? and for Windows also.

thanks, i really need to perform a backup

 

[2ffat]

ARCserve has a link on their page for support. You will need to search for the patches and service packs. As newer devices come out, patches are released to support them.


James P. Cottingham
[sup]I'm number 1,229!
I'm number 1,229![/sup]

 

[davidmichel]

well if you are running 12.0 then

https://support.ca.com/irj/portal/anonymous/phpdocs?filePath=0/4536/12/4536_12-patchindex.html