Forum Discussion

DeTolk's avatar
DeTolk
Level 3
15 years ago

Tapeunit spits out tape before backup

Hello,

At my work, we backup on a daily basis. We use Backup Exec 10d for Windows Servers and a Dell Tapeunit (13 months old).

The last 5 weeks we have a problem with the tapes we use on Tuesday.

5 weeks ago I checked (on Wednesday) if the backup of the day before was finished, but the tape was out of the unit and the unit asked for a cleaning tape. So I ran the cleaningtape and the next backup finished properly.
The next Tuesday, the same problem occured. So I replaced the Tuesday-tape with a new one.

The next week, the same problem happened.


I have already tried 3 brand-new tapes for the Tuesday backup, but none worked.

Even in the Job Log there is nog message of a failure.


We use MS windows server 2003 and in that Eventlog, there is no message of a missing tape....


I don't think the problem lies in the unit itself, because the other backups are good with no errors.


Greetings,

DeTolk

Backup and Recovery
Backup Exec
Symantec Event
  • CraigV's avatar
    CraigV
    Moderator
    15 years ago
    Hi DeTolk,

    Normally when a tape ejects it is because there is either:

    1. No space available if you append to your tapes;
    2. Tape is not in the scratch set and cannot be overwritten.

    I'd go into your Overwrite Protection on your media sets and make sure they are all OK and correct, and then check to see whether or not your jobs are trying to append to the media or need to overwrite.

    Laters!
  • DeTolk's avatar
    DeTolk
    Level 3
    15 years ago
    1. I believe there is enough space available because I also tried brand-new tapes.
    2. The tape switch is in the  overwrite mode. I also checked if the switch was far enough in the good position.


  • CraigV's avatar
    CraigV
    Moderator
    15 years ago
    And what are your jobs configured to do? Overwrite or append?
    BEWS would dictate what happens with the tapes. Even with the protection tab open, the tape can still be overwritten or appended too...
  • Ken_Putnam's avatar
    Ken_Putnam
    Level 6
    15 years ago

    Craigs second question refered tp whether you moved the new tapes into the production medai set, or whether you just left them in the Scratch media set

    if you moved them to the production media set, then they will be write protected until the OPP has expired.  when you enter new tapes into your rotation, you need to label them and leave them in scratch.  When backupExec uses them, it will move them into the media set they belong in
  • pkh's avatar
    pkh
    Moderator
    15 years ago
    I had a problem similar to yours 2 months ago.  My backup job would failed randomly and asked that the tape drive be cleaned.  I replaced the tape drive and the problems go away.
  • DeTolk's avatar
    DeTolk
    Level 3
    15 years ago
    I have tested the tuesday tape for the backup of last night, and what happened:

    The backup completed succesfully. So the problem is not the tape, I think....


  • CraigV's avatar
    CraigV
    Moderator
    15 years ago
    Anything "special" that happens on a Tuesday night? Any antivirus scan? Maintenance on a server application etc? LiveUpdate?
  • David_Perrin's avatar
    David_Perrin
    Level 5
    15 years ago
    I think the media set is the place to took for overwrite protection and append period.  Since you are using one tape all week, the append period on the media set the job is set up to use should be at least 4 days.