Tape Drive keeps failing to mount

[VRT_KMONTGOM]

Hi Everyone,  Looking for some advice.  I am receiving the error: 

Job ended: Tuesday, February 01, 2011 at 9:14:02 AM
Completed status: Failed
Final error: 0xe0000f16 - The operation failed to acquire the minimum number of drives and media needed.
Final error category: Job Errors

For additional information regarding this error refer to link V-79-57344-3862

So... I follow the suggestions in the article as well as everything I can find on the forums.  If I power everything down, then bring it back up properly, start a backup immediately, it will work.  BUT... the next day's backups will fail for the same reason.  I have reformatted (erased) my tapes, tried new tapes, cleaned the drive, updated the drivers and firmware, checked everything using Quantum's tape tools (Quantum LTO2 drive) and updated Symantec... still same problem... need some advice what to try next.

Server: Windows Server 2003 Standard, on HP hardware running an external Quantum LTO2 drive SCSI.  Symantec BE 11

Any thoughts?

Thanks in advance...

[RahulG]

Try the following steps

1. Make sure the removeable storage service is disabled

2. Make sure the drive is not connected to SCSI id 1 or 0 as it is reserved for bootable devices

3. Try updating the drivers for the SCSI card and check there is no issue with the SCSI termination

[Kiran_Bandi]

May be your robot having problems in loading media into the drive. If that's the case your library will go offline and BE will not be able to access the drives.

Check your tape library event logs for: Unable to perform stow operation at slot X. 

If present contatct your hardware vendor.

Regards..

EDIt: Oops sorry not using a robotic library... Missed it..

Ok, what about your job log? Any errors reported in that?

[VRT_KMONTGOM]

No robot.  Single tape drive.  Can't be the robot.

[AmolB]

Is the job configured to overwrite or append ?

If its configured to append only then make sure you have appendable media.

[VRT_KMONTGOM]

1. Removable storage verified as disabled.

2.  Scsi device ID 6

3.  Updated drivers for SCSI card... no issue with termination I can find.

Need to reboot, found a slightly newer Adaptec driver... will see if that makes any difference, though I don't understand why it would just stop working for no reason...

[VRT_KMONTGOM]

Job configured to overwrite.  Media is attempting to erase as well, which fails.  Funny thing is, after a cold reboot, everything works.  Thus I can't fault the hardware, it is as if it works once then fails on the software.  This system has been in place and functional now for over two years, with no problems.

[AmolB]

Check the event viewer for any error message related to hardware.

[VRT_KMONTGOM]

Sadly, there are none.  That is what has me baffled.

[CraigV]

...can you check the power cables on your server and the tape drive?

If there is dodgy power (it goes down all the time), and the server is on a UPS while the drive isn't for instance, I have seen this cause issues. We have this on some of the sites.

You might also want to look at the SCSI cable. Over time they can get damaged, leading to either total failure, or intermittent failures.

Laters!

[VRT_KMONTGOM]

Hmm... I am seeing a parity error on the adaptec SCSI card being listed in the system event log... wonder if that is the cause...

[Colin_Weaver]

Any hardware related errors against the SCSI card could easily affect the reliability of access to the tape device - if this ever worked can you check back far enough in the event logs to see if those errors started happening at close to the time your problems started?

[RahulG]

Would just you to contact the hardware vendor as the issue is with the SCSI card most probably .