Superloader 3 + BackupExec 10d

[that1guynick]

Having some issues here with our autoloader...

My engineer cohort is on the phone with Symantec to see if they can figure it out so I thought I would post here to see if any of you had any ideas.

We migrated all of our servers into new cabinets last weekend.

One of the glitches we have found is that even though both have been rebooted, our tape loader doesnt want to interact with Backup Exec properly. We're getting some error messages on the front display of the loader "TAflag[32]" and also in BE, it is saying all of our tapes are "Bad Media"

Just throwing this out looking for some suggestions.

TIA,

Nick

 

[lannym]

Hello; Just curious how you made out and share the fact that today, i seem to be in the same boat again.

I had problems with my first superloader 3, and tech support walked me through rebooting everypart of the system and re-adding the devices to the device manager.... but in the end, to my suggestion, they shipped a replacement and it worked right out of the box.

Now with my second SuperLoader 3, i appear to be having the same problems again.

"Drive TAflag[32]"
"Interface "

Just like the first time, nothing in the configuration has changed, no scsi card settings, no drivers, nothing.

 

[that1guynick]

Well, long story short, whoever plugged the SCSI cable in didnt line it up correctly, and bent several of the pins.

After spending a good hour with some fine tools straightening things out and plugging it in correctly, it worked perfectly.

That's it. It was the last thing we thought to check too.

-Nick

 

[lannym]

Wow, good thing you found it, and got up and running again.

Still not sure what's going on with the loader here, nothing in the current setup had changed, and nothing was moved or unplugged either.

I guess i'll have to call them again and see about a replacement... again.

 

[that1guynick]

Some things to try....shut both the server and tape down.

Turn on the tape device, and then power up the server and watch the SCSI BUS detection process during bootup.

As I found, check to make sure there are no bent pins in your SCSI cable. Maybe try a different cable.

I've found Veritas support to sometimes be more helpful than Quantum support, just as an FYI.

Good luck!

 

[technome]

Bent pins....
The HD connectors are prone to bent pin.... if the connectors are sparyed with Teflon spray (Borden's or Remmington), the connectors attach/remove smoothly, making it very difficult to bend a pin, as major resistance means the pins are not lined up. Without the spay, it is difficult to tell if a pin is bending.


........................................
Chernobyl disaster..a must see pictorial

http://www.kiddofspeed.com/default.htm

 

[steevej]

All, Check your cables and total length of them to ensure compliance with SCSI, Ultra2 and Ultra3 specs... and make sure none are running over or alongside power or light (60hz) cabling - just a poss that electrical noise is injecting spurious signals into the mix and feeding the drives or card gobbledygook it cannot decipher ;-)

 

[lannym]

Update to my problem listed above... after checking all the cables (they were all good)... over the past few weeks, i've figured out the problem. It Seems to be the boot order of the devices.

Power up sequence:
Power up LTO3 Superloader, after it's ready, power up the server it's connected to, and the job should work great. (i've tried it a couple times over the past few weeks, and it's worked everytime)

When i did software updates, and had to reset the server (but not the LTO3), the jobs would error, and i'd get the interface error on the front LCD panel on the LTO3... but after following the boot sequence, everything seems fine.

QUESTION:
What do you have your routine setup in BackupExec?
In mine I have a tape for each day of the week,and a cleaning tape. I'm curious how others do theirs and the reasoning.

Thanks, hope this helps.