curioffl Posted August 11, 2008 Report Share Posted August 11, 2008 We have a copy of Retrospect Single Server, updated to the newest version (but purchased as 7.5 three months ago) and have been having a lot of trouble with it and an 8 tape HP Ultrium DC tape library (the server, tapes, software, autoloader, Windows, etc, all are brand new). Between 1 in 5 and 4 in 5 full (50 gig) backups to a clean ("recycled") backup set (one set per tape, tapes are 200gb with compression) issues a 'communication error' and *appears* to "record" to the end of the tape. That is, after an 'error communicating' the backup set will have (say) 37gigs in use but no 'space remaining number', and will demand more media. The only fix when this happens appears to be to recycle the backup set and start the backup over. Generally the shorter incremental backups (2 gigs maybe) have less trouble so I have managed to force full backups for each tape (sometimes it would work the first time, sometimes I'd get five communication errors on five tries, I can't find any triggers either way) in order to have *something* for now. This morning what should have been an incremental backup was simply demanding media (the morning's tape hadn't even auto-loaded into the drive). I checked it out and the tape that should be 'Tape 2 - Monday' was listed as "(Unknown)" and says "Content unrecognized" in the "Status" box when forced into the tape drive. According to the logs the full backup that I forced on to that tape last week was successful (eventually). Does anyone know where to begin with this? I searched around a bit but seemed to find years-old advice to upgrade versions and drivers (etc). Thanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mayoff Posted August 11, 2008 Report Share Posted August 11, 2008 Go to device manager and mark the tape drive driver and library driver as "ignore". This may help communication. Update your SCSI card driver to the latest version too. Content Unrecognized could mean that the drive is unable to read the tape header. This might point to a problem with the drive or the media. I would start with communication troubleshooting before looking at a drive problem. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
curioffl Posted August 11, 2008 Author Report Share Posted August 11, 2008 Did you mean in Retrospect? (I went to "Devices" and "Environment" and checked "Ignore ID" for the two entries that look related to the library. After closing and opening Retrospect the tapes and drive all disappeared, "Don't Ignore ID" brought them back.) (Perhaps you mean to "Disabled" the Windows drivers themselves?) Thanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mayoff Posted August 11, 2008 Report Share Posted August 11, 2008 No, in the device manager of windows you can disable the device driver. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
curioffl Posted August 14, 2008 Author Report Share Posted August 14, 2008 Okay... the effect of disabling both "Tape drives" "Hewlett Packard LTO Ultrium-1 drive" and "Media Changers" "Hewlett Packard MSL G2 1x8 autoloader" is that the drive disappears from Retrospect along with all of its tapes (and nothing will run). With either of those drivers enabled but the other one disabled, it sees the tapes but apparently cannot access them (running through the paces then demanding media). (Not to sound smart-alecky but how was it supposed to work without drivers?) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mayoff Posted August 15, 2008 Report Share Posted August 15, 2008 In almost all cases the unit should still be available to Retrospect after doing this. Retrospect uses it's own drivers when the program launches and does not use the Windows drivers. Did it help to update the scsi card drivers to the latest version? You mention communication errors during backup. What are the exact errors being reported? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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