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Steve_4's avatar
Steve_4
Level 4
11 years ago

Tape Drive Error "You have loaded a cartridge of a type that is read-only in this drive".

Hi all,

 

Recently I swapped a Dell Powervault TL2000 LTO-4 with an LTO-6 TL2000 including LTO-6 Tape Drives.

 

I duplicated the settings between the two devices
I duplicated the virtual settings of the drive etc in backup exec
I performed an Inventory and initialized the drives
I updated the firmware on the library and drives

The first 2-3 backups ran fine.

Then I started getting the error: "You have loaded a cartridge of a type that is read-only in this drive".

From what I can gather it appears that the backup job is placing any tape to be placed in the drive immediately under the media set which places a one week overwrite protection over the tape.

I then placed every tape under scratch media...nothing.

One other thing to add is that 4 of the tapes currently say (End marker Unreadable)
Although, these tapes are not being used in the failing jobs as I have checked the slots etc.

We currently have no backups running at this point so any help greatly appreciated!

Regards,

Steve

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  • pkh's avatar
    pkh
    11 years ago

    The "insert overwritable tape" message indicates that you do not have sufficient overwritable tape for you job.  This is another problem pertaining to your media sets.

    You can put your LTO4 tape drive into your library, but you would need an LEO licence in BE to operate it.

    If you do put in your LTO4 tape drive, you need to set up your barcode rules for

    LTO4 - read LTO4, LTO3, LTO2, write LTO4, LTO3

    LTO6 - read LTO6, LTO5, LTO4, write LTO6, LTO5

    LTO tape drives read 2 generation back and write to 1 generation back.

    As an aside, I don't know why you bought LTO5 tapes when you have a LTO6 tape drive.  When you read and write a LTO5 tape with a LTO6 tape drive, you will get slower performance.

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  • pkh's avatar
    pkh
    Moderator
    11 years ago
    1) Go to the BE installation directory and use tapeinst.exe to delete all occurances of the old and new library from BE, 
     
    2) Stop the media server and the library
     
    3) Start the tape library
     
    4) Start the media server
     
    5) Ensure that the library and tape drive is recognised and functioning correctly in the Windows Device Manager. The library should appear as an Unknown Medium Changer with a Microsoft driver and the tape drive should have a Symantec driver.
     
    6) In BE, install the library if necessary. 
     
    7) Try again.
  • Steve_4's avatar
    Steve_4
    Level 4
    11 years ago

    Hi guys,

     

    Sorry it is Backup Exec 2010 R3.

     

    Pkh sorry forgot to mention also I have done all of those steps as well
    (Just before I created this post actually)
    But to no avail unfortunately.

    I am trying one or two things and will update shortly.

    Regards,
    Steve

  • pkh's avatar
    pkh
    Moderator
    11 years ago

    If you are using barcode labels, check that you have set up your barcode rules correctly.  See my article below

    https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/articles/how-use-barcode-rules-prevent-accidental-readwrite-wrong-type-tapes

    LTO6 should be able to read LTO4, but not write to it.

  • Steve_4's avatar
    Steve_4
    Level 4
    11 years ago

    Hi Pkh,

     

    I have also looked into bar code rules and I had set an extra rule with the suffix L5 (We are not integrating LTO6 tapes Just LTO5 and pre-existing LTO4's).

    Now I am getting the error: "Please Insert Overwritable media into the tape library". After Enabling Bar code rules again. This is what I got last time I setup bar code rules.

    If you are right about LTO6 drives being able to read but not write LTO4 tapes...should I put an LTO4 tape drive back in the 2 slot library? So I would have 1 LTO6 Tape Drive with Bar code rules setup, and 1 LTO4 tape Drive which will not read LTO5 tapes?

     

    Regards,

    Steve

     

  • pkh's avatar
    pkh
    Moderator
    11 years ago

    The "insert overwritable tape" message indicates that you do not have sufficient overwritable tape for you job.  This is another problem pertaining to your media sets.

    You can put your LTO4 tape drive into your library, but you would need an LEO licence in BE to operate it.

    If you do put in your LTO4 tape drive, you need to set up your barcode rules for

    LTO4 - read LTO4, LTO3, LTO2, write LTO4, LTO3

    LTO6 - read LTO6, LTO5, LTO4, write LTO6, LTO5

    LTO tape drives read 2 generation back and write to 1 generation back.

    As an aside, I don't know why you bought LTO5 tapes when you have a LTO6 tape drive.  When you read and write a LTO5 tape with a LTO6 tape drive, you will get slower performance.

  • Steve_4's avatar
    Steve_4
    Level 4
    11 years ago

    As mentioned I have placed all tapes under scratch media.

    The insert overwritable media problem actually says it is due to bar code rules so I had to change over manually each of the properties of online media to match either LTO4 or LTO5 bar code rule.

    Will each tape automatically map to the LTO4 or LTO5 bar code rule next time it is placed in the library?

    From what I have read, once I swap over to bar code rules I will no longer have to do an inventory. But should the inventory still work?

    The reason why we bought LTO6 equipment and yet use LTO5 is because we manage multiple offices and own libraries and drives from different countries so we have a lot of extra LTO5 tapes. Upgrading to LTO6 seemed most beneficial and getting away from LTO4 tapes is a priority before moving up to LTO6 tapes. Our schedule works fine with current speeds anyway so I assume it will be fine once we get backups running again with LTO5 tapes.

     

    I am curently running an inventory without bar code rules and I will swap back to bar code rules after this inventory...it seems to be working which is a good sign. I will update once it is completed.

    Thanks for your help so far.

    Regards,
    Steve

  • Steve_4's avatar
    Steve_4
    Level 4
    11 years ago

    Hi pkh,

     

    I was also wondering if I could have your assistance with something else in regards to this issue.

    We currently have our monthly's kept in storage for a period of seven years.

    So what we plan to do is have all of our LTO4's in this monthly storage so that we can implement the new tapes.

    Do you suggest that we A) Put an LTO4 tape drive in our current LTO6 Library so that we have both 1 LTO6tape Drive (RW for LTO5+6) and one LTO4 Tape Drive (RW for LTO4 tapes).
    Then create two partitions, one containing the slots with LTO4 tapes and one containing the slots with LTO5 tapes. Then I can assign the big weekly backups to the LTO 4 tapes so that they can slowly be taken into a seven year retention period, and have all other backups running on the faster partition with LTO5 tapes.

    Or should I put the old Tape Library back and have the LTO4 tapes in that older device backing up our monthly's while having the new device back up all other backup jobs?

    Lastly, is it worth putting both the old LTO4 drives in the new device and having all LTO4 tapes in the new device? Will having one of each drive effect it much? Or is it better to place to LTO4 drives?

    I believe the partition idea would be better but is there extra things required for this etc? Or is it just a matter of creating the partition and assigning the job to that partition?

     

    Thanks,

    Steve

  • pkh's avatar
    pkh
    Moderator
    11 years ago

    The insert overwritable media problem actually says it is due to bar code rules so I had to change over manually each of the properties of online media to match either LTO4 or LTO5 bar code rule.

    I don't understand what you are doing

    Will each tape automatically map to the LTO4 or LTO5 bar code rule next time it is placed in the library?

    When you enable the barcode rules, they will apply whenever a barcoded tape is introduced into the library.

     

  • pkh's avatar
    pkh
    Moderator
    11 years ago

    If you put 2 tape drives into one library, then you need to buy a LEO licence.  If you use 2 libraries with 1 tape drive each, then you don't need LEO.

    With 2 drives in the same library, partitioning will not work.  You still need to enable proper barcode rules to prevent the wrong type of tapes from being used in the wrong tape drive.