Medium changer not showing up in device manager

[jaykay123]

Hello

We have a Windows 2012 R2 serve with a HP StoreEver MSL2024 autoloader attached. It was all working ok until it randomly started going offline in Backup Exec 2014. In device manager the Tape drive was showing up as HP Ultrium 5-SCSI SCSI sequential device and the medium change was showing up as "Unknown medium changer".

I thought that changing to the HP Ultrium 5 drivers from HP for the autoloader might fix this issue (I should have read more before I did this as I know this is wrong now) but now the tape drive is showing up as Hewlett Packard LTO Ultrium-5 drive and no medium changer shows up at all.

I haven't removed the autoloader from BE yet, but it's still showing as offline.

How can I first get the right drivers back on to the tape drive (the generic Microsoft ones) and then secondly how can I get the medium changer showing up again? Then how can I get BE detecting the autoloader properly?

Thank you!

[pkh · Accepted solution]

It is the other way round. The tape library needs to show up in the Device Manager first before you can deal with the driver problem. 1. Go to the BE console and delete all instances of your tape library and tape drive. 2. Shutdown both the media server and the tape library 3. Start the tape library 4. Start the media server 5. Check that the tape library and tape drive are functioning correctly in the Windows Device Manager. The tape library should show as an Unknown Medium Changer with Microsoft Driver and the tape drive should have a Symantec driver. If the tape library does not appear in the Device Manager, then you need to get your vendor to help you get it recognised by Windows. In your case, there is a nigh possibility that the tape library/drive needs to be replaced If need be, use the procedure in this document to change the tape library driver http://www.veritas.com/docs/000027467 6. Reinstall the tape library if it does not appear in the BE console

[pkh]

If you are using any HP Insight software, uninstall them

[jaykay123]

Thank you for the replies pkh.

Firstly there's no HP Insight software, just HP Command View to connect to the tape library.

Is there any way of doing the above steps without shutting down? The BE server is in a datacentre and if I shut down the tape library I won't be able to start it again without physically going to the datacentre. If there's no other way I can travel there, but just checking first.

Should the medium changer appear in device manager even if it doesn't have the right drivers? I have read one forum post where the changer was hidden from the OS because it was changed to sequential instead of random mode. I've checked this as well, the library is in random mode.

I'm still wondering if the tape library isn't showing up because I changed the tape drive drivers to the HP OEM ones instead of "HP Ultrium 5-SCSI SCSI sequential device"

[CraigV]

If the medium changer is configured correctly it will show up in Device Manager either as "Unknown medium changer" or showing the actual name of the manufacturer.

always use the Symantec drivers for your tape drive...tapeinst.exe will install them for you.

Thanks!

[jaykay123]

Thanks CraigV

I've read so many forums posts trying to figure this one out, can you tell me how to change the drives back from HP Ultrium 5 to the Symantec drivers?

I've tried doing this in device manager for the tape drive but it now says that the best match drivers are already installed.

So there might be something wrong with the medium changer? I can't see any errors in the HP Command View console for the tape library. I've tried rebooting the tape library as well, it came back fine but still doesn't show in device manager anymore.

Thanks

[CraigV]

Don't worry about the tape drivers in Windows Server 2012 R2, I believe the OS takes care of this.

Open Device Manger on the server in question and change the drivers of the medium changer to Unknown medium changer.

I'd also recommend downloading HP Library and Tape Tools and running it against the library to rule out hardware issues. Just stop the BE services before doing so. Also make sure the cable used isn't perhaps damaged!

Thanks!

[pkh]

The tape library does not appear in the Device Manager because it is not recognised by the OS. Without a reboot, I don't see a way to get it recognised. The tape drives should be using Symantec drivers, not any other drivers. However, tape drive drivers should not cause the library not to be recognised.

[jaykay123]

Thanks pkh and CraigV.

Craig the medium changer isn't appearing in device manager so I can't change the drivers for it.

WIth the tape drive I've gone ahead and installed the HP OEM drivers (mistake) and even when I uninstall the tape drive from device manager, reboot the server, it reappears again with the same drives after I log in.

I've downloaded HP Library and Tape Tools and all devices show up fine no errors. In HP Command View I can connect to the tape drive and it shows up fine no errors. 

pkh - I can do reboots of the server and of tape drive, just can't do a full power off as I don't beleive there's any iLO type function on the tape drive to turn it back on again unless I go to the data centre.

Craig - Unsure about the cable being damaged, it's in a hardened secure data centre so it would be unlikely but anything is possible.

Will try rebooting the tape drive again. Any other suggestions to get the medium changer showing up in Windows?

Thanks

[jaykay123]

Ok so there's been progress and this job can be marked as resolved.

I noticed that tape loader number 1 (listed as LUN) inside HP command view was saying "Not Ready, Not connected" so I restarted the tape drive again and checked the status of tape loader 1 again and it said "Connected and online". I then restarted the server after that. When the server came back online, I checked device manager and Medium Changer devices was listed. There was also now two HP LTO Ultrium-5 drives listed under "Tape Drives". This seems fine because we have two tape drives.

It was listed as "Hewlett Packard MSL G3 Series library (x64 based)". I changed it to "Unknown Medium changer" as advised and rebooted the server again. When it came back online it had changed back to the "Hewlett Packard MSL G3 Series library (x64 based)" listing.

I thought I'd give BE a try anyway, and BE discovered the robotic library, and the tape drives attached. I ran an initialize and it worked. I am now running a test job and it's 150gb into the job with no errors.

Needless to say I'm not going to touch it. It appears to be working now. I will start clearing the back log of tape backup jobs needing to be done and see if any more errors occur.

Strange how it changed back from Unknown medium changer, but I'm just glad it's working

Thanks for all your help pkh and CraigV

[Larry_Fine]

Strange how it changed back from Unknown medium changer, but I'm just glad it's working

You probably need to actually remove the HP drivers (medium changer and tape drive) from the system, not just disable/uninstall the device from device manager.  Once HP drifvers are on the hard disk, Windows and/or HP will keep trying to "help you" with help that you do not want.

[jaykay123]

Thanks Larry I'll look into removing them completely.