Please insert overwritable media in to the drive

[Adrian_DeBoer]

I have been getting the following error:

Please insert overwritable media in
to the drive.

Overwritable media includes scratch, blank, and recyclable media. Please
note that depending on the current Media Overwrite Protection setting, im
ported and allocated media may be overwritable as well. Consult the onlin
e help for more information on overwritable media.

Respond Yes to acknowledge.
Respond No to retry the operation.
Respond Cancel to cancel the operation.



I do have overwrite enabled for the media set and for the backup job - the funny thing is that this message will occur about halfway through a backup job. The other night, I disabled a number of selections on the job and it was successful....but as soon as I re-enabled 1 more folder for backup, it came back with the same error.

This is obviously driving me nuts!! Why does it in the middle of the backup give me this error and decide it can't all of a sudden write to the tape??!!??

Here are some of the things I have checked and done so far:

- Overwrite protection time is set to 1 hour.

- I have done inventory of all the tapes and they appear blue.

- I have previously moved all the media into the Scatch Media set....made not difference, still got the error halfway through a backup job.

- checked to see whether I was running out of space on the tape, and how much data was being backed up when I got the error - in most cases - it gets to 13 gb (different each time!! ) which doesn't make sense b/c I have a hp dat 24 with dds3 tapes that have hardware compression enabled....the tapes should not be getting full...

I await someone to please help me...ask me questions about what my settings are etc.

Thanks.

AdrianMessage was edited by:
adeboer

[Vidyaj__Patneka]

Hello,


"Please insert overwritable media" this error is generated if the Tape has become full and needs another overwritable media to complete the backup job.


We suggest you the following,

-Set the overwrite protection period to '0' days

1.Take a fresh Tape media and perform an overwrite backup job (equal to capacity of the tape) and check the results.

2.If you get any alert message indicating "Please insert overwritable media" then remove the existing tape media from the Tape device,insert another Tape media and then respond 'OK' to the Alert and check if the backup continues.

If this is what happens, then the first tape is getting full and hence it is asking for another overwritable media.


You may refer the following technotes,

http://seer.support.veritas.com/docs/192265.htm

http://seer.support.veritas.com/docs/237374.htm


Hope this helps.If the issue persists then revert back with necessary information.

[Ken_Putnam]

if the job is set to overwrite, and this occurs partway through teh job, then yuou are filling the tape up.

What kind of tape device are you using? What kind of media? How much data is backed up before this message is displayed?

Be aware tha a tape rated 12/24 GB is guraanteed only for 12GB. The 24GB figure refers to a 2:1 compression rati0, a figure rarely acheived in the real world. I generally figure about 1.3:1 until proven otherwise

See
http://seer.support.veritas.com/docs/199542.htm

[SANDEEP_PILLAY]

Hi,

Please kindly update on the issue.

[Adrian_DeBoer]

Hi guys!

Thanks for replying! I was in at my clients on Friday and I did a "test run" on the backup job - and it failed.....so I disabled some selections (some of the bigger sized data folders) and did another "test run" and it was successful. So I think you guys are right that the tape is running out of space and wants another tape....this size area where it is successful or fails happens around 12 gbor 13gb.

Am I misinformed about compression ? I thought that if the hardware compression (yes, it is enabled) would compress the data so that it fit...I realize you are not going to get the full 24 gb compressed....about 18 compressed? why is it then failing at 12 -13gb compressed??

I'll update you guys on more specific detail and settings once I go back there. Thanks.

Adrian

[Adrian_DeBoer]

OK - I'm at my client's office.

When I came in - the tape was spit out and the error "Please insert overwritable media in to the drive" was in the Alerts menu - all as expected....it was at 13 and change gigs.....

so I stuck a second tape in the drive and it continued to backup and then proceeded to verify....so all of you were right about the tape filling up I guess.

But here is the 64,000 question:

The total size of the data I'm backing up is 11 GB.
If it should be compressing 1:3:1 - should it be around 8 GB or so???

Also - if I'm only backing up 11 GB - why then is it failing out at 13 GB???? Where is it finding an extra couple gigs to back up????

I'm using a HP SureStore DAT 24 / DDS3 tapes...the tapes are all a couple of months old....and one is a couple weeks and they all do the same thing....so I doubt it has anything to do with the tapes are far as age (wear and tear). I also cleaned the drive so it doesn't have anything to do with the physical dirt/dust - if it does, it will give a CRC error.

I also set the overwrite protection to 0 days....

Let me know what's going on please.

Thanks.

Adrian

Why does

[Ken_Putnam]

Compression varies with the types of data backed up. EXEs and DLLs don't compress hardly at all. Graphics and MP3, are already compressed. Database files vary depending on how sparsely the database records are filled in. Word processing docs compress somewhat, Spreadsheets vary widely.

See http://seer.support.veritas.com/docs/199542.htm


You could always just train the client to have the first person in in the morning swap tapes and give it a scratch tape to complete the job (if you have anyone at the client site you trust that much )

[ashwin_pawar]

You may try installing the latest driver and check the compression performance again.
VERITAS Backup Exec (tm) 9.1 - Device Driver Installer (20041101) - Includes Tape Driver Release (20041006) and Robotic Library Release (45) (Intel Only)

http://support.veritas.com/docs/273853

[Ken_Putnam]

The only way to check compression is to turn off Hardware and use Software only. The compression ratios won't be exactly the same, but they will be close, and will print in the log at the end of each job step.

Are you absolutely sure that the backup is only 11 GB? You are not selecting a share twice or something?

Try creating a new job and select list and see what happens.

[anoop_nair_2]

Hi,

Kindly update us on the issue.

[Adrian_DeBoer]

Guys:.

OK...I'll give it a shot....installing the latest driver. How can I check the compression performance? or now if it is compressing at all...

I'll give this a try too.... turning off Hardware and use Software compression only

I'm pretty sure the size if 11gb- but I'll check again...I'm not selecting shares..I'm just selecting local files/folders. I'll even tell you what the entire size of drive is that I'm backing up the files/folders on.....

Thanks again.Message was edited by:
adeboer

[Amruta_Bhide]

Hello,

to calculate the total bytes written ont he tape you can go through the following deccument:
How to determine the total Bytes written to a piece of media within Backup Exec
http://support.veritas.com/docs/235307
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Additional Information:

How to confirm that the data is being properly written to the tape media
http://support.veritas.com/docs/246958

Backups fail to get double the amount of the native capacity recorded to a media, even when hardware compression is being utilized.
http://seer.support.veritas.com/docs/199542.htm
************************************************************************
NOTE : If we do not receive your intimation within two business days, this post would be "assumed answered" and archived.

[Madhuri_Shenoy]

As per our previous reply, marking the case as "assumed answered" and moving it to "answered questions" pool.