Reused tapes not recognized and overwritten even when protected

[Scott_Straub]

Backup Exec 7170 with hotfixes 1-10.  Device Driver release 76. 
All systems are Windows Server 2003 or SBS 2003 except for one Windows 2000 Server. 
DLO is not used.  Exchange agent is installed by not scheduled at this time.
Exabyte VXA-2 1x10 Autoloader with barcode scanner. Latest tape drive firmware and autoloader firmware.

I have reocurring and seemingly random issues with tapes being unrecognized and duplicating themselves in the tape database of Backup Exec. 

Here's what happens:
-Insert a tape written to last week (by this exact same install of BE)
-Tape scans automatically by autoloader
-Manually run Inventory on that slot from Backup Exec console (Tape is properly recognized and shows the data as intact)
-When the tape gets selected for a job it will magically become a "new" tape, but the "old" tape will continue to exist in the database.  (physically they are the same tape.)   So I will suddenly have two tapes labelled A0000001.

Sometimes the tape will still be in it's protected period when this occurs.  I had a monthly backup run over 2 days last week, and the first day tape A000005 was used (protection period now set to July 2008), then a following job used that same tape, but created a second A000005 tape in the database.  According to Backup Exec I have two tapes labelled A000005, when in reality there is only one and the data on the first one is now GONE forever!

[Scott_Straub]

Last night, a previously used tape named A0000002 was in the autoloader (where it remained since the last time it was written to), labled, and recognized by BE.   It was selected by BE to be used in a job and instead of being appended to or overwritten, a duplicate A0000002 was created, the original A0000002 was marked "offline" and the new "duplicate" tape A0000002 with description (Unknown) was written to.

All contents of the original A0000002 are now lost, including the statistics for the tape itself.