Shows drive as Empty

[nerses]

I have Retrospect Workgroup Edition v.5.6 running on the NT 4.0 SP6a server. My backup device is Dell PowerVault 120T DDS4 autoloader (whish is same device as Sony TSL-S11000).

 

 

 

Retrospect shows the drive as Empty, even though there are tapes in all of the 8 slots of the drive. For the same reason, when I have a scheduled backup to run, it can't find any of the tapes and asks to select a tape.

 

 

 

However, when I manually select one of the tapes using the buttons on the device itself, after that Retrospect starts to see them. Before I had Sony TSL-S9000 and Retrospect 5.5 and it could see the whole library fine. I have noticed other people in the forum have similar problems with different devices. Is this a known issue? Is there a patch? Is there a known way to fix this?

 

 

 

Any answer will be highly appreciated.

 

Thanks,

 

Nerses

 

 

[AmyJ]

The drive reports to Retrospect whether or not there is media in the slots. That you have to manually maneuver tapes on the loader for them to be displayed to Retrospect, sounds like there is a miscommunication between the computer and tape drive. Use the following troubleshooting to isolate the faulty variable:

 

 

 

Make sure your SCSI Card drivers/firmware are up to date, in addition to the firmware for the device.

 

Isolate the drive on the SCSI chain.

 

Make sure all the cables are secure and seated properly.

 

Make sure ASPI is properly installed (ASPICHK.exe located in the Retrospect Program folder). If it is not installed, run ASPIINST.exe for installation (in the same folder).

 

Try a new SCSI cable.

 

Try a new terminator.

 

Try the drive on a different computer.

[nerses]

Hey, thanks a lot.

 

 

 

I have done all the above before, except of running the ASPICHK.exe. After your posting I found the file, I executed it and voila- it is working now. Thanks.