Cannot use foreign media...

[Lee_Burdick]

Hey all, I'm new to Backup Exec so I'm assuming (and hoping) this will be something quick and painless.

I just replaced an HP Autoloader that used OmniBack II with a Quantum SuperLoader 3 that came bundled with Backup Exec 10d for Windows Servers. I've installed the hardware, got all updates for BE and my SCSI adapter, and things seem to be running fine as far as the program communicating with the device and vice versa.

The one thing I did not do when making this purchase was buying new media. I've got roughly 30 DLT IV's from my HP Autoloader, so I opted to use them. BE sees the tapes and I can Import them and move them between Media Sets, but if I try to do anything else with them, such as Erase or backup a couple of files, I get either a "The media is write protected" or "Media ### is overwrite protected." I figured it would be just a matter of formatting the tapes, but the option to Format is grayed out and not available. And yes, I have checked to make sure the tapes aren't physically write protected.

Thanks in advance for your help.

[Ken_Putnam]

Make sure that you set the Global Overwrite Protection to "partial"

if it is set to FULL, Backup Exec will not overwrite tapes created outside of this installation of BackupExec

Cycle the services (just for good luck :) ) then inventory one of these tapes, and it should show in BLUE (overwriteable)

[Lee_Burdick]

Thanks for the response Ken.

I've tried setting the options to both 'Partial' and 'None'. Both methods show the media in blue, like you pointed out, however, BE still returns the same errors or messages that the media is read only or write protected.

[Ken_Putnam]

Stay away from NONE. You may as well keep an EXCEL spreadsheet

if the inventory shows in blue, then software protection is not the problem. Is the Protect tab on the tape itself in the "write" position?

[Lee_Burdick]

Yeah, the tab's in the correct position. That was one of the first things I checked.

I'm tempted to contact support, but since BE came bundled with the autoloader, I'm not sure whether to contact Veritas or the hardware manufacturer.

[shweta_rege]

Hello,


-- What are the media set properties that you have selected?


-- Kindly try to move the tape into retired media and then delete the media and check..


Thank You,

Shweta

[Ken_Putnam]

Sweta -

read the complete thread. after an inventory the tapes show in BLUE

[Ken_Putnam]

Almost sounds like the tapes may not be compatible with the drive. What kind of drive is it? and what kind of tapes are you using?

[Lee_Burdick]

Thanks for your help on this Ken. I do appreciate it.

The unit is a Quantum SuperLoader 3 that uses a DLT V4 tape drive. The media I'm using is Maxell DLTape IV. I've also been trying to use some HP DLT IV's.

I'm wondering if the HP OmniBack software has written something on the tape to write protect it.

[Ken_Putnam]

Almost sounds like it.

If you still have an old NT4 box around, you can use NTBACKUP with the /nopoll switch.

Have you tried a long erase on one of these tapes? may take quite a while

This will completely ignore the existing header and write a generic header in it's place.

Too bad the switch disappeared when W2K came out


Do new tapes work OK?

[Lee_Burdick]

Actually, I just got off of the phone with the manufacturer and the salesman who sold me the drive.

When I was originally in the market to replace our old drive, one of the key selling points was that I didn't want to purchase new media for this drive because we replaced all of our old DLT IV tapes back in June. So our salesman told me that my DLT IV's could be used with this drive. Turns out, the tapes can only be read, but not written to.

So this is all my fault for not researching this on my own and trusting my account rep's suggestions. I'm going to box this drive up, ship it back, and get a replacement. I can't see spending $3000 on an autoloader and spending another $1500 on media when I've got a collection of these DLT IV's already.

Again, thanks for your help Ken. Any recommendations on a good autoloader that not only reads, but WRITES to DLT IV's?

[Ken_Putnam]

Hmm

DLT7000 is OLD technology, VS80 and newer drives do have this restriction

You may be able to re-format/relable the tapes before they are used the first time on the new drive

[Tim_Yogerst]

Sorry I'm a bit late to this post (newbie), but thought I'd mention this anyway...

Quantum's site has some useful interactive diagrams for compatibility
Go to this page http://www.quantum.com/Products/TapeDrives/DLT/Index.aspx
Then select Media Compatibility Tool from the Related Links area (right-hand column)

I've found this to be very helpful in knowing what drive can read or write to specific tape formats.