cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

BE 2010 won't write to tape - unrecognized format.

Noah_Adams
Level 4

I had a tape drive in a remote location fail, so I purchased a new LTO4 drive and shipped it down with a case of brand new LTO3 tapes. When I try to run a job to this new device, I get an error that the media is in an unrecognized format and must be erased before using. I've tried both a short and long erase, and I still get the same error.

In the drive, the media shows up as scratch media, and overwriteable. I tried deleting and recreating the job, but that had no effect.

Does anyone have any suggestions? I'd really appreciate them.

Thanks,

Noah

7 REPLIES 7

CraigV
Moderator
Moderator
Partner    VIP    Accredited

Hi Noah,

 

You don't mention the drive manufacturer, but if it is something like HP or IB<, they have a diagnostic utility you can download and run against the drive. In the case of HP, it is Library and Tape Tools. You'd have to stop the BE services before using the application.

From there try an erase of a tape and see if BE does anything with it.

You should also ensure that you're using the correct barcode labels on your LTO3 tapes if you're using this, and that you're using the Symantec drivers for your tape drive. You can run the Device Configuration Wizard from the Tools menu within BE.

Thanks!

Larry_Fine
Moderator
Moderator
   VIP   

Doies your drive show "Drive Type: LTO 64k ..."?

Does your media show "Media Type: LTO"?

I assume your erase job runs without error?

Noah_Adams
Level 4

I've attached both the tape drive details, and the media details. The drive is a Quantum LTO4 standalone, with no barcode reader. The tapes were previously barcoded, but never used. Both the long and short erase jobs run without error.

I'll look around for a Quantum tape drive util, but now I have the Symantec drivers installed, so I don't think it will work.

Larry_Fine
Moderator
Moderator
   VIP   

weird.  I would start with the SCSI trace tool to see if the drive is reporting anything weird during the backup.

http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH49432

If that doesn't show anything meaningful, then the next step would be to get a verbose SGmon log of the backup job.

Noah_Adams
Level 4

I see an error on "SECURITY_PROTOCOL_OUT", and then a check code that responds INVALID_FIELD_IN_CDB

Attached is the full BIN in case you want to see it.

Noah_Adams
Level 4

This morning, I tried uninstalling and reinstalling BE. Had no effect. One thing I noticed, is when I put a tape it, it was immediately put into "Retired Media", and I had to manually assign it to a valid media set.

Larry_Fine
Moderator
Moderator
   VIP   

Is this a SCSI or SAS environment?

Is the HBA a supported (ie non RAID) HBA?

The security_protocol_out command should be accepted since this is an LTO4 drive.  But it is generating a timeout.

Then the following READ6 command fails, which might be why BE thinks it is unreadable media.  Other READ6 commands that aren't after a security command work OK.

 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Event    Check      Start                     End        Target                                                                 Operation
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
103      E           9/18/2012 15:18:59.681   78         02:00:06:00 [QUANTUM ULTRIUM 4       HU1207M3AC]                       SECURITY_PROTOCOL_OUT
104      C 52400     9/18/2012 15:18:59.759   2500       02:00:06:00 [QUANTUM ULTRIUM 4       HU1207M3AC]                       READ6
==================================================================================================================================================================

Event:       103  Start: 15:18:59.681  Stop:  15:18:59.759  Duration:  0.078125
SCSI Address: 02:00:06:00 [QUANTUM ULTRIUM 4       HU1207M3AC]
Function                                SRB_FUNCTION_EXECUTE_SCSI
SCSI Status                             SCSISTAT_GOOD
Sense Length                            0
Data Length                             52
Driver Result                           STATUS_IO_TIMEOUT

Raw CDB
B5 20 00 10 00 00 00 00 00 34 00 00             . .......4..

CDB Operation                           SECURITY_PROTOCOL_OUT
 Page Code                              0x20
 Security Protocol Specific             0x10
 Length                                 52
 Control                                0x00
Data
00 10 00 30 20 78 78 78 78 78 78 78 78 78 78 78 ...0 xxxxxxxxxxx
78 78 78 78 78 78 78 78 78 78 78 78 78 78 78 78 xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Event:       104  Start: 15:18:59.759  Stop:  15:19:02.259  Duration:  2.500016
SCSI Address: 02:00:06:00 [QUANTUM ULTRIUM 4       HU1207M3AC]
Function                                SRB_FUNCTION_EXECUTE_SCSI
SCSI Status                             SCSISTAT_CHECK_CONDITION
Sense Length                            44
Data Length                             65536
Driver Result                           STATUS_SUCCESS

Raw CDB
08 01 00 00 01 00                               ......

CDB Operation                           READ6
 LUN                                    0
 SILI                                   False
 Fixed                                  True
 Length                                 1
 Control                                0x00
Data
00 00 00 00 20 78 78 78 78 78 78 78 78 78 78 78 .... xxxxxxxxxxx
78 78 78 78 78 78 78 78 78 78 78 78 78 78 78 78 xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


Sense Data
70 00 05 00 00 00 00 10 00 00 00 00 24 00 00 C8 p...........$...
00 01 00 00 02 00 01 00 02 00 00 00 01 C2 38 74 ..............8t
D2 95 CD 01 01 C2 38 74 D2 95 CD 01             ......8t....
 Filemark                               False
 EOM                                    False
 ILI                                    False
 Sense key                              ILLEGAL_REQUEST
 ASC                                    INVALID_FIELD_IN_CDB

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------