Many Soft Read errors

[Sijtsma]

Hi all,

i started to look at my device properties in Backup Exec 12.5 SP1 and i noticed i currently have 18434090 soft write errors of which 10236911 since the last cleaning (i clean every week, but BE doesnt register this for some reason)
i have 33.3 TB written in total, 2,222 hours in use. 

I read in a support article that Soft write errors are an recoverable errors, but might indicate future problems. 
How can i investigate were these errors are comming from ?

The Hardware is a Dell PowerEdge 2900 with an TANDBERG TS400 Tape drive (LTO-2)
Server is bought in 2008 and started running BE in jan 2009. So just over a year in production as a backup server.

I use Software compression and Encryption.

I hope i gave enough info and you can help me.

Regards,

[sksujeet]

Everytime you try to write on the tape and for some reason if it not able to write for the first time it will keep increasing the soft write error. This can happen if the tape header is gone corrupt or the tapes. Please check the properties of your tape as well. If it is the issue with the drive you can check the diagnostic check from the tape utility.

Check also for the event viewer for any error. Try updating for the lates drivers for the drive also.

[Sijtsma]

I checked the errors on the tapes. and they are on every tape.
My daily tapes all have a few millions or errors
my weekly tapes 200-400k errors
monthly (those that have only run once) about 25k

So it seems that every backup generates about 25k errors.

Where can i find new drivers ? i cant see them on the Dell site. Currently i use Drivers by Symantec.

[sksujeet]

If you are getting it on all the tapes in that case it can be the problem with the drive. Please update the symantec driver to lates if not updated. Also try cleaning the tape from a brand new cleaning tape, make sure cleaning tape is not expired because if that is the case then it will not clean the drive.

[pkh]

If you have been using these tapes for a long time, you might also want to replace them.  They could be worn out.

[Sijtsma]

Ok, can you point me to the latest symantec drivers ? im not sure where to find them. and i will purchase a new cleaning tape.

[teiva-boy]

I would also do selective restores from the tapes, and begin doing this on a monthly basis.  There is nothing more frustrating than pulling a random tape from x years back looking for a file only to find out that the tape is no good.

[Ken_Putnam]

Go to the product support page at http://www.symantec.com/business/support/downloads.jsp?pid=15047

Filter for "v12.5" and "Driver"

[AmolB]

Run Live Update, install SP3 for BE12.5 once SP3 is installed again run Live Update and download 14 other hotfixes.

Once all the updates are installed close the BE console, browse to X:\Program Files\Symantec\Backup Exec\Tapeinst.exe

Run the Tapeinst.exe and update the device drivers. If still you get the soft read or write errors then refer to the below article

http://support.veritas.com/docs/229641

http://support.veritas.com/docs/321554