Device Status is reported as Media Failure

[delaney]

I have a Seagate Travan tape drive, and am using Retrospect Express 5.6.132.

 

I am running Windows XP Pro. My computer has 512 megs of memory and an 80 gig Maxtor hard drive.

 

When I insert a new Travan 20gb tape in my Seagate drive and go to Configure and click Devices, my Seagate Travan tape drive is displayed but it is reported as "Empty." The Status is displayed as Media Failure.

 

I have tried several tapes and get the same results with them all. Can you offer me any solutions?

[AmyJ]

Was ASPI installed correctly? Run ASPICHK (in the Retrospect Program Files

folder) to make sure ASPI is "green" and all components are at version 4.60. If not, try a reinstall (ASPIINST.exe). If you still have problems, consult the Retrospect User's Guide or Adaptec's website. Check to see if tapes show up properly.

 

Enable NT SCSI Passthrough to bypass ASPI: From the Retrospect Directory hit Ctrl-Alt-P-P. Under "Execution," check "Enable NT SCSI Passthrough." Click OK. Quit and relaunch.

 

If you still don't have any luck, I'd recommend the following hardware troubleshooting steps. Unfortunately you haven't said whether your device is SCSI, ATAPI or Firewire/USB, so I'll send troubleshooting instructions for the three possibilities:

 

SCSI:

Update the driver software for your SCSI card(s) at their manufacturers' websites.

 

Next, do you have any other SCSI devices connected to this computer besides the tape drive? If so, disconnect them, terminate the drive, and try again.

 

Then, have you tried another cable from the computer to the (isolated) drive? Another terminator? If you haven't tried both of these, do so.

 

If you've done all of these steps with no results, try the drive connected to another computer.

 

If you're still having problems after following all of the above steps, do the following: quit all other applications and terminate any nonessential tasks (Ctrl-Alt-Del) and turn off software compression (under the Options button).

 

 

ATAPI:

 

Try straightening out the internal ribbon cabling.

 

Try switching master and slave settings.

 

Try new internal cabling.

 

Try updating the firmware on the device if possible (see the drive manufacturer's website).

 

Are the drivers for the IDE controller current? Try updating them with an approved update from your PC vendor.

 

Finally, try bringing this drive to another PC and trying the backup. If it works here, you could be having a problem with either the ATAPI bus on the original machine or with the PC itself.

 

 

FIREWIRE/USB:

 

Update the Firewire/USB drivers for your operating system or card.

 

Try connecting the device with another cable.

 

Try connecting it to another port on the computer if available.

 

Try the device on another machine.

 

If the drive is still producing media failure messages after going through the above troubleshooting, you drive, being the only variable that has not changed, is the most likely culprit. Contact your hardware vendor.