BU 11d Physical Volume Library Drive not available.

[abrink]

 Hello - Just purchased a new Dell PV 110 DLT VS160 Tape Drive and am trying to keep backups to run to it.

When I inventory a tape, it works correct, and I see the blank scratch media in the drive, I then try to label the tape and that is where my problems start.  The Label Job fails with this message: Physical Volume Library Drive not available.

I also have many of the following errors in my event log:

Adamm Mover Error: GetDriveInfo Failure!
Error = ERROR_IO_DEVICE
Drive = "DELL 1"
   {1708138A-F29B-400A-B57C-7B03271A294A}
Media = ""
   {00000006-0000-0000-0000-000000000000}
Read Mode: SingleBlock(0), ScsiPass(0)
Write Mode: SingleBlock(1), ScsiPass(1)

If anyone could give me suggestions, I would appreciate it very much.  I've spend numerous hours with no luck on this one.

Thanks,
Andrew

[Christiane_Pete]

Hi Abrink,

First - make sure the tape drive is not connected to a RAID controller, but a regular SCSI controller.  Then try the following:

1.  Right-click on "DELL 1" in the "Devices" tab in Backup Exec and select "Enable" (this will disable the drive)

2.  Right-click on "DELL 1" and select "Delete.

3.  Download and install the latest tape device drivers (see below for download links). 

4.  Power cycle the server/tape drive (make sure NO tape is in the tape drive, turn off the tape drive if it is external, power off the server, power on the tape drive and power on the media server)

Try running a small backup job to verify whether the drive is correctly seen by Backup Exec.  If you are still experiencing issues, you could check your Event Logs for hardware related event id 7's, 9's, 11's and 15's.  If you find any of these, please trouble-shoot as per below links:

Event ID 7 is generated in the System Event log when performing a media operation on a tape device.
http://seer.support.veritas.com/docs/241684.htm

Event ID 9
How to resolve SCSI bus timeouts
http://seer.support.veritas.com/docs/191158.htm

Event ID 9
How to Troubleshoot Event 9 and Event 11 Error Messages
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;154690

Event ID 15
A tape drive intermittently goes offline on the VERITAS Backup Exec (tm) Devices tab, and "Event ID: 15. The device, \Device\SCSI\device_name is not ready for access yet" is recorded in the Event Viewer System log.
http://seer.support.veritas.com/docs/248089.htm

=====

Links to 11d 6235 and 7170 Tape Device Drivers (x64 and x32 bit)

http://support.veritas.com/docs/288039 (7170 x64)

http://support.veritas.com/docs/288038 (7170 x32)

http://support.veritas.com/docs/286764 (6235 x64)

http://support.veritas.com/docs/286763 (6235 x32)

Hopefully, the above will do the "trick".

Regards,

Christiane

[Nate_B]

You also might want to check the driver that installed for the PowerVault.  I understand from Dell support that this error message can occur if you're using anything but the Veritas/Symantec driver. 

If its not the correct driver, go to Program Files\Symantec\backup exec and run tapeinst.exe.  That'll install the Veritas/Symantec driver.  Caution - requires reboot!

Also: if you run a firmware update from Dell check the drivers again.  Last time I did a firmware update on a PV it reverted to the Quantum driver and I had to run tapeinst.exe again (that's 2 reboots...grrrr)

Message Edited by Nate B on 05-24-200710:37 AM

[Mike_Wild]

I've also spent numerous hours over the last several weeks chasing ghost errors and cryptic messages like "Adamm Mover Error: GetDriveInfo Failure", and I've determined three things.

1. Always install latest firmware for drive and loader (if applicable) and always make sure latest drivers for controller card are installed. This is a no brainer, but there are still some of us who insist on ignoring these items.

2. That error occurs most often when the tape drive itself is busy. I have an Exabyte VXA loader, but the error returned when some other process has locked the drive is the same as you're seeing. Could be not responding for some reason, or other scsi timeout type problem, or it simply might be in use by a process at the time you're trying to access it.

3. The best way to trouble shoot the problem is to install the Dell management utilities for that drive, stop all BE services, run the utility, and see if the problem(s) still exist. My problems were non existent in that scenario, so it quickly eliminates many variables.

BTW - My issues were caused by the controller card (aha39160) scsi transfer rate. As soon as I throttled it down from 160 to 80... no more time out, device not ready, or any of the other reported errors. Go figure... that card was recommended by the HW mfg specifically because of the higher transfer rate. Odd that the transfer rate is not a problem when running diagnostics and utils supplied by the hardware mfg, it's only when I introduce B/U Exec into the mix that the trouble starts. Perfect example of the problems that arise by layering one mfg on top of another, on top of another (Symantec, Exabyte, Tandberg, & Adaptec... in my case).

-M

Message Edited by Mike_Wild on 08-29-2007 04:25 PM

Message Edited by Mike_Wild on 08-29-2007 04:34 PM

[R_H_2]

Just a post for anyone researching this error, This was just posted to the KB:

When attempting to run a backup job "Physical Volume Library Drive not available" Error occurs
http://seer.entsupport.symantec.com/docs/290495.htm