Unreadbale media

[stevken]

Hi

I have arcserve 11.1 build 3102 running on a windows 2003 server and using an HP Ultrium drive.

The backups have worked perfectly for around 7 weeks now but this week I have had all sorts of problems.

1. Drive goes off line its took 2 reboots and a restart of engines to bring back on line
2. All tapes are detected as unreadable media. If I format the tape it shows as blank but the back up fails saying unreadable or unrecognisable media
3. Again I put another tape in and the same thing happens.

I have tried cleaning the drive but the tape is spat out after 1 minute. Is this normal. On other systems, cleaning the tape takes 4 or 5 minutes?

TIA

Steve

 

[stevken]

Apologies for the dodgy spelling by the way.

I just tried new tapes which show up as blank media but as soon as I start the back up I get the same problem. The back fails with unrecognizable media error immediately.

 

[vschumpy]

If as you say it's been working perfectly and nothing else changed, you would have to suspect it is a hardware problem.

 

[stevken]

Oh dear!

Is there any chance this could be related to all the previous problems I had (remember all the times I had to to the cstop - delete all files beginning with R and temp files). 6 or 7 weeks ago this routine had to be done 3 or 4 times a day then it just settled down.

Is there even the slightest chance that this would resolve it or indeed that it isnt a hardware issue? The drive is brand new

 

[vschumpy]

If it's brand new - it's under warranty right? Have them fault out the drive.

Could be a db related issue - check for the same symptoms you had last time. Also if it's a new drive, you did remember to disable the drivers et al right ?

Check here if you need a reminder:

http://supportconnect.ca.com/sc/redir.jsp?reqPage=search&searchID=TEC342813

and here for DB issues:

http://supportconnect.ca.com/sc/redir.jsp?reqPage=search&searchID=TEC376895

 

[stevken]

OK - here is what I tried to prove disprove hardware.

I tried to use windows back up to do a test back up but it said it couldnt find any suitable media. I decided to reboot server and try again but on the reboot, the server stopped at the part where it initialises the SCSI devices and in particular SCSI ID 3, which is the ID for the tape drive.

I rebooted again with the same error but if if I switch the drive off, it boots straight in to the OS.

Any thoughts before I call support for device?

 

[vschumpy]

Sounds like a SCSI termination problem or possibly a hardware issue.

 

[stevken]

It cant be termination as it has been working on SCSI ID 3 for 6 or 7 weeks and to the best of my knowledge there have been no hardware changes.

I suspect we have a fault drive.