Backup Exec Not Recognizing Tape Media
I'm new to Backup Exec and am having trouble getting our backups working. We use NDMP to backup NetApp to a robotic tape library. Under the Media Properties of the tape drive it states "There is no m...
Forum Discussion
Is this impacting ALL jobs from the NDMP server?
Is this impacting ALL jobs using the tape library?
Do you have any jobs that target anything other than the tape library?
The goal is to determine if the issue is related to the NDMP system or the tape library system. The best way to do that may be a test job that you can change source and target easily to see where the problem lies.
We use a single NDMP server and a single tape library on this system so yes it is impacting all jobs. It would take some time to configure it otherwise, but it may come to that.
Right now it seems that the robotic library is not loading any tapes to the drive for some reason. When starting the jobs I receive media request "Please insert ovewritable media into the drive..."
monkdan wrote:
When starting the jobs I receive media request "Please insert ovewritable media into the drive..."
Well, that is completely different than your first post. I would look at the media in the library in the BE GUI. Do you see overwritable media? If you do, then this needs to gets investigated. If not, then you need to fix that.
Yea sorry about that, the situation is certainly developing. The majority of the media reads Description - "Bad Media" Media Set - "Scratch Media" Overwirte Protected Until - "Overwriteable (Scratch media)" Appendable Until - "Not appendable".
I've been trying to find good answers on the bad media description because I have a hard time beleiving dozens of different tapes are all bad. Could drivers be a factor? Also, there are some tapes that do not have the bad media description so why does it not use these tapes?
Tapes with "(Bad Media)" in the description are usually found in the "Retired Media" media set. There is also an alert from Backup Exec when a media is found to have issues and it is then moved to the "Retired Media" Set. If you suspect that those tapes might actually be good, then make a list of those bar codes for your reference, delete them from Backup Exec, then run a Scan job for your tape library and then an Inventory job on the slots that hold these media. If they inventory OK, then I would suggest erasing them, but that is up to you and whatever might be on these tapes.
If there are tapes in the "Scratch Media" media set, then those tapes should be available for use, assuming they are actually in the robotic library. You can certainly try erasing them to help test them.
Tape drivers are not likely to be a factor in your situation.
What is your tape library (brand, model & interace/connection)? What type of tape drives and quantity are in your library?
You might consider running the tape drive vendor diagnostic program (IBM ITDT or HPE L&TT) if the library has an FC connection to the BE Windows server to see if your tape drives are healthy. A bad tape drive can certainly cause media issues.
