tape drive freezing media

[SITA_FS]

hi  all

Im running netbackup 7.0, and my backups have been running fine until a month ago. i use two drives to perform perform backups and the second one has been freezing media and failing the backups.  i did a diagnostics test on both drives, it succeded on the first drive but failed on the second drive.

[Andy_Welburn · Accepted solution]

As you've already isolated the fact that you have a hardware issue, then you'll need to place a call with your hardware vendor to get it repaired/replaced.

There's nothing you can do within NetBackup apart from maybe down the drive (if it's not already) and check that those media that have been frozen are still viable (not damaged) before unfreezing them.

***EDIT***

Some things you could potentially check if you haven't already:

 .... the physical connectivity for drive e.g. loose or damaged cabling
 .... cleaned drive
 .... powered down/up drive
 

[Nicolai]

Andy nailed the problem.

I have only a small addition. Take a look at the Windows event viewer - I guess you should be able to see SCSI read/write error or the notorious "Record entry not found". All SCSI Sense 0x03.

You can see a description of the SCSI sense codes at 

http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E21419_03/en/LTO5_Vol3_E5b/LTO5_Vol3_E5b.pdf

Page 190 and forward. Have you used a cleaning tape lately ?