backup failure

[steve_contris]

On occasion, the backup scheduled for early morning will not start, and puts events into the log with ID58061 and this text:

"Please insert overwritable media into the drive"

What are some of the possible causes of this? We are using a set of tapes we have been using for quite awhile, and this only very rarely happens. Out of desperation, I used the cleaning cartridge but I have no idea if that is what was needed.

If I don't cancel the job and put in the next tape in the rotation, the backup begins.

[Bee_Moua_2]

We have had this problem before. We have resolved this problem by "associating" our tapes in Scratch Media. By doing this our tape becomes overwritable.

Also you should create your own media set, in that way you can control the overwrite period for each backup job. If you know that your daily tapes, for instance, will be overwritten every 5 days, you can specify the overwrite period to 4 days. Mind you, the overwrite period does not start until it finishes the back up; if you have started the job on Feb 16th at 8:00p, but if it completes on the 17th at 12:00a, the tape will be protected to Feb 21st 12:00a, 4 days later.

This might be helpfuls as well: We have partitioned our tape drive in that way we can specify a tape to a specific backup. For instance if you have 8 tapes in a magazine and you want to specify tapes 1 and 2 for the daily backup, you can partition slots 1 and 2 of the magazine just for that job.