BUExec 10d think that 4mm tapes are actually B2D media?

[Meppy]

On the 26th of June a customer's BackupExec 10d stopped backing up.  When we examine the jobs and the media we have found a most unusual problem.  All the 4mm DAT backup tapes are now labelled as B2D media types in Backup Exec with 1GB of storage.  Looking back through the backups that worked before the 26th the job logs has them listed as B2D but they still backup over 50GB of data, but from the 26th it no longer seemed to accept that the B2D storage was available (the B2D device is actually a PC that may have been turned off from that date?).

I do not understand what has happened, other than a corrupt database.  Has anyone seen this before?  Is there a way to fix this and then catalog the tapes?

[sksujeet]

This could be because it is removable b2d drive or BE detect this as B2D as it happens depending upon the type of drive you are using. You already said it has writing to B2D. Now it only shows 1 gb that might be because it might be running out of space or it is not reflecting it clearly. Please try to inventory or quick erase and it and try to get it detected again

[Meppy]

No, as I mentioned this a DAT tape drive (specifically an HP DDS5 tape drive) and the media should be appearing as 4mm. There is a B2D setup to a PC that has 1gb limit and this is what it is showingnfor all the tapes instead of the correct details. Tapes are ejected as soon as they are inserted so I can only assume some kind of BUExec database corruption. I will try updating and repairing.

[sksujeet]

Delete the drives and B2D folder from the driver tabe and restart the services. Also make sure all the BE services are started under the right account.

[CraigV]

Hi,

Are you targetting your tape media sets with the B2D media sets...?

[Meppy]

OK after a bit more digging it seems that the tapes where being seen as write protected (not sure why yet as have to wait for the customer to check the tapes).  The backup job was not targetted specifically at the tape drive and so it started trying to do B2D backups which failed when it filled up the remote PC or it was turned off.  So my initial understanding of the problem was incorrect.

I have targetted the backup to the tape drive only and if the tapes are not write protected via the tab then I will reinstall the tape device drivers, etc.

It maybe that BackupExec is labelling the new tapes with the same names as retired media and it's getting confused, I need to do some more testing to work that one out.  Thank you for the response so far, I will update when I have the solution or if I am still stuck.