I reinstalled my tape drive on Windows a while back because it had stopped working with BE, after I put a cleaning cartridge in the drive. Since then, BE consistently reports incorrect media capacity. I am using 200/400 Gb Maxell Ultrium 2 cartridges with a Tandberg TS400 drive (also known as "420LTO") on Windows Server 2003.
With a truly scratch tape (i.e., just out of the plastic wrap), BE reports a 64-kb total capacity. If I use the tape in a backup, this capacity increases as data is written to the tape. So, after 24 Gb are written, BE reports that the tape has a total capacity of 24 Gb.
This is all well and good until I try to re-use the same tape (I do a four-week rotation of full back ups on Fridays. So when week 1 comes around again, I want to re-use the tape that I used four weeks ago). After four weeks of business operation, there is more data to backup than there was before. But BE is now convinced that the tape will only hold 24 Gb, so after writing 24 Gb to it, BE ejects the tape and asks for another.
I've read several threads about problems like this, and so far have not seen a conclusive answer. This is not a cosmetic problem. My tape drive is running the latest firmware (0218). If a "long erase" is the same as a "bulk erase," then "long erase" is not an option for me: on the package of my Maxell tapes a huge warning shouts "CAUTION: DO NOT BULK ERASE". As I understand it, this will render the tape unusable.
At this point the only tapes that are of any use to me are the few that I had used before I reinstalled the tape drive. As far as BE is concerned, these all have a 198-Gb capacity. The rest are more or less useless for backing up any significant quantity of data.
Has any one else encountered this particular variation on the media-capacity problem? Any fixes?
