Wacky BE Tape Drives!!!

[JustinIvey]

Here we go... Total ghost in the machine.

We run BE 8.5 on 2 dedicated backup servers. Each server backs up the NT systems on our 2 NT/2000 subnets at our data center. Due to the $$$$ we're backing up 160+ NT/2000 servers with Backup Exec. All servers are different flavors of Compaqs'. Excuse me.... HPs' (not bitter...)

We just bought an ADIC AIT-3 libary that's really sweet, but we can't use it because we only have DLTs at our Disaster Recovery Site. So, for now, we have a total of 8 DLT drives. 4 connected to each server. The drives are all Compaq (Quantum). They range from 35/70 to 40/80.

We're planning to use Storage Migrator to archive (nearline) some of our old data to the ADIC libary. In order to use Storage Migrator, we needed to upgrade our BE servers to Windows 2000. We did this and the issues started....

We did both: Upgrade from NT to 2000 and fresh builds.

We're seeing all kinds of messages and nothing is the same. Drive Errors, Bad Media, Cleaning Lights, etc. seem to jump from server to server, drive to drive, tape to tape.

The biggest thing we're seeing is "bad media" and "unknown media". So we bought a new pallet of tapes. Same issues. From a different vendor.... Same issues.... Degaussed.... Same issues. Erased tapes in an NT 4.0 system.... Same issues...

Last night we rebuild a backup server. DL380G2 w/ dual 1.4 2GB Ram, embedded 5i controller. "Re" upgraded all firmware on drives, etc. Guess what??? All backups ran great. 24 hours later we're seeing bad media on some of the drives.... New tapes, Old tapes, Degaussed tapes, NT 4.0 formatted tapes, nothing is working.

Has ANYONE seen anything remotely close to this? Veritas has nothing for us... Yeah, Yeah, we're SURE we have RSM disabled...

I think its driver related or the "secret" RSM 2000 stuff... We've tried Veritas DLT drivers, Microsoft DLT drivers, Quantum drivers, Compaq drivers and all give the same "flaky" results...

Please Help!!!!

Justin

"I love my job", "I love my job", say it enough and I'll believe it... "I love my job", "I love my job".

 

[blonde]

What if you upgrade the Veritas to 8.6 build 3878? Blonde

 

[SQLBill]

The only 'bad media' error that I've experienced was when I put new tapes in. All I needed to do was 'Label' the media.

-SQLBill

 

[Qdog]

To eliminate the evil Veritas as the problem. Close BE, stop all BE services and set them to manual. Remove Veritas drivers. Make sure the tape device is enabled in RSM and then test the device w/NTbackup. IF that also gives you errors. Guess what, your hardware is f'd up. Check the HCL to make sure the device is compatible. Upgrade all firmware and drivers. Upgrade BE to latest build. Make sure the tape device is not connected to a RAID SCSI controller.

Have fun.

 

[ih8MSos]

I had the same problem. All media was being marked as bad media. I cleaned the drives several times and finally it recognized the media. but i guess you said that your drives are new? if the drives are new i would upgrade to the latest build of backup exec.