Windows cannot initialize Veritas drivers...

[Clayton_Walter]

Hey guys,

I've been having some issues with a couple of my NetBackup servers that we ended up figuring out was related to the HP drivers.  I installed the latest Veritas device drivers on one of the servers without a problem and my issues were resolved immediately.  However, I am having problems using the Veritas drivers on the other server.  The installation completes successfully but I get a yellow exclamation icon next to each tape drive in Device Manager and the status "Windows cannot initialize the device driver for this hardware. (Code 37)". 

I've tried uninstalling the devices and reinstalling, restarting the server, installing the drivers manually, and in just about every order you can think of but it always behaves the same way with these drivers. 

I have to re-install the HP drivers to use the drives.  I'm not sure what the problem is...I used the same exact install method on both of the servers I was having the issues with.  Both servers are HP DL580 G2 servers connected to HP MSL6030 Tape Libraries via fiber NSRs and they are running W2K3 SP1...but I could only install the Veritas drivers on one of them.  I need to use these drivers to solve my issues...and of course this is my most important backup server.

Has anyone come across anything like this?  Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance.

Clayton

[sdo]

You could try installing teh latest version of the Windows Installer package (I belive is v3.1) for your particular O/S type (i.e. x32, x64, IA64).  This is probably the first thing to try.

Also, you could try using these steps to determine if you have any old "ghost" tape drives hanging around, that you can delete:

1) Start a DOS "cmd" box.

2) set devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices=1
3) start devmgmt.msc

4) Click "View" and select "Show Hidden Devices"

5) Review light shaded "orphaned/ghost" devices.

N.B. Do not be tempted to remove other "old" devices, the above should only be used to review the previously known tape drives and drivers.

Regards,

Dave.

[Clayton_Walter]

Hi David,

The Windows Installer package is up to date.  I checked for any orphaned devices as well but there were none. 

I'm having some intermittant connectivity issues with at least one of the NSRs so I'm trying to get that fixed right now with HP.

Clayton

[Clayton_Walter]

Replaced the NSR, and that solved our connectivity issues but still am having the same issue with the Veritas drivers. 

I am going to open up a support case with Veritas.

[Clayton_Walter]

Well chaulk one up for Veritas support!  Got a call back within 15 minutes and we determined pretty quickly that the "Use Plug and Play drivers" needed to be checked during the Symantec driver installation.  I ran the install with that checked and it worked right away. 

Why did it only need to be checked for one of the servers?  We aren't sure why...but the Veritas guy said he was going to write up a tech article about the issue I was having.

Clayton

[Stumpr2]

Thanks for the follow up.