Backup Exec Tape Help

[JMGravell]

Hello all!

I'm wondering if anyone can help me. I'm not as compentent as some people on here so when it comes to back up exec I have reached the end of my knowledge with it.

I am unable to perform any form of erase on the tape (quick or long) nor am I able to inventory the tapes. After giving the server and the tape drives a restart the tapes are showing as offline - when I change them to online it seems to show as online but I am still unable to perform any tasks (as mentioned above).

An error I recieve when trying to quick erase is:
"Back up exec final error 0xe0008115" which returns the following statement: Physical Volume Library Drive or Robot paused, offline, or disabled.

So, as stated above, I have tried the usual restarts, different tapes etc and I'm still struggling to get it going again. Any suggestions/help would be very much appreciated! :)

Kind regards,

Jordan

[AmolB]

What version of Backup Exec you are using?

In BE console unders devices tab check if the server is in paused state. 

[Jaydeep_S]

Jordan, are the tape drives using Symantec Tape Drivers. You also need to find out what the drives are offline after service/server restart. Run the diagnostic utility provided by the hardware vendors to ensure that there is nothing wrong with the harware.

[JMGravell]

Hi both,

@AmolZeroCool: We are running Backup Exec 2010 R2 version 12.0 Rev. 4164 (64-bit) and is not in paused state - it states that they're online.

@Jaydeep S: How can I check what drivers the tapes are using? The only reason I would say that they are is because up until now, I haven't had an issues with backup exec - backups have been running fine.

After a restart the tapes show as offline. How do I run the diagnostic? Is it through the reports?

Regards,
Jordan

[pkh]

I would suggest that you upgrade to BE 2010 R3 which is the latest version. Your existing licence keys will work.  You can download BE 2010 R3 from either the fileconnect site or

http://trialware.norton.com/files/fc/Backup_Exec_2010_13.0.5204_MultiPlatforms_Multilingual_DVD.iso

After your upgrade, do not forget to run LiveUpdate a couple of time to update it to SP3 and the latest hotfixes.

After you have upgraded to R3 SP3, push out the remote agent again.

[JMGravell]

In doing this will it affect any jobs that are on a daily reccurance?

Also (sorry to be a pain) this wouldn't explain why it is now all of a sudden not working would it?

Kind regards,

Jordan

[pkh]

No. The upgrade will not affect your jobs

[JMGravell]

Any light as to why this has started to happen though?

Regards,
Jordan

[Larry_Fine]

What tape drive are you using?  I am assuming you are using a single tape drive and no robotic library?

Is the tape drive visible in Windows device manager?  If not, you need to resolve that first, probably a hardware issue.

If it is visible in Windows device manager, then I would disable the tape drive within BE, delete the tape drive, restart BE services and let BE rediscover the tape drive.

Your adamm.log file should also give more details about why the drive is offline.  Feel free to post it here.

This will also help with troubleshooting: http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH24414

[JMGravell]

Hi Larry,

Thanks for your reply! The disk drives that are showing are 'DELL PERC 6/i SCSI Disk Device' and they're 'working properly'. If I were to do the delete and rediscover, how easy is it/definite that the drives will be discovered?

Regards,

Jordan

[Larry_Fine]

Are you using tape or disk?  Your reply confused things by talking about disk.

Does your Windows device Manager have anything in the "Tape Drives" branch?

[JMGravell]

Oh, apologies, I don't think it is showing the Tape drives, here is a screenshot of what devices are shown:

http://gyazo.com/b669119b054c42a3767c4580b31eb0a4

Any ideas?

Regards,
Jordan

[Larry_Fine · Accepted solution]

Since Windows cannot see your tape drive, this is not a BE issue.  Your tape drive or HBA may be dead or disconnected, so you will need to do hardware troubleshooting or get your hardware vendor involved.

This will also help with troubleshooting:

http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH200801

How to verify that the operating system properly detects a device so it can be used with Backup Exec

[JMGravell]

Ahh okay, you are right - I will have to look into this further. Thank you very much for your help!

I am happy for this thread to be closed - Resolution: not to do with BE but to do with own devices.

Kind regards,
Jordan