Unrecognized media after VXA Tool erase

[Jakub_Pospichal]

HI,
We use Exabyte VXA-2 drive with V23 and X23 tapes(80/160GB) on Win2000 Server with BackupExec 9.0.

I used Exabyte VXA Tool for testing couple of our tapes. It performed write/read operations and reported that the media is without errors. However, BackupExec now reports them as Unrecognizable media.

So I thought that the problem is in the testing data from VXA Tool, I went back to VXA Tool and selected Erase option. But BackupExec still says unrecognized media.
Quick, Long Erase as well as Rename options fail due to unrecognized media. Format option is disabled.
At least on of the tapes is 100% without erros, since it was brand new.
The tapes are erased, but I am unable to use them with BE. Any idea how to make them work with BE?
Thanks,
Jakub

[Ken_Putnam]

Is there a "Label" or "Initialize" function in the VXA tool?

I seem to recall that LTO2 drives that had the LTO utility run against them, needed to be initialized throught that tool

[Jakub_Pospichal]

Well, there is couple of functions which might be similar.
1) AuxiliaryPage/ Test Selection/ Re-Format Tape - that does not help, I still cannot use the tape. The error in BE when try to Rename or Erase says:..Library error - incompatible storage media detected...
2) Diagnostic/ Tape/ Erase - same problem

Jakub

[Amruta_Bhide]

Hello,
If we understand this correctly, you see the media in the Backupexec, but it is shown as unrecognised.

- Do you get any Events / errors in the event logs?
- Could you also give us the EXACT error message?
- Have you tried erasing the medie from Backupexec?
- Have you tried Putting the media in the scratch media
- Have you tried inventoring and catalogging the media from Backupexec?

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Thanks.

[Jakub_Pospichal]

OK,
in BE when I went to Devices/Exabyte VXA2 it said none, there was no media showing. Same in Media tab, there was none for online media. As I stated before, erase (long and quick) gave me the error message stated before, rename does not work either.

BUT, I left the damn tape in the drive overnight and the scheduled backup job was successful. Now the tape is recognizable, has name, and works great.

This does not seem to me as proper way of initializing media. If it says unrecognizable media and show drive as empty, it is logical to expect the backup job to fail - so therefore I would use different tape. Only because I did not have another tape I left it in the drive.

It would be much better to have BE say - there is unrecognized media, do you want to initialize it? And then perform test backup job on it...

[Amruta_Purandar]

Hello,

We apologize for the delay in response.
- Does this issue persist?

NOTE : If we do not receive your reply within two business days, this post would be marked assumed answered and would be moved to answered questions pool.