Jump to content

VXA 1x10 driver


Recommended Posts

I have the same problem with the same drive (Exabyte's VXA Autopak 1x10), which is a SCSI drive, but I am running Retrospect 5.15 Server on a Windows 2000 Pro computer. The backup drive does come up automatically, but there is also a new "Medium Changer" group in Device Manager now, and it includes an "Unknown media changer device". Any thoughts on that?

 

 

 

I have to also ask about what you meant by loading drivers into the device manager so that they would be seen by Retrospect. I didn't understand because of the warning on Exabyte's web page that installing their driver would incapacitate the Retrospect driver (they claim that the driver is for native operating system backup software only). To clarify, you want for us to load the Exabyte driver?

 

 

 

Many thanks,

 

Dan

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Exabyte's VXA Autopak 1x10 - This drive was not supported until version 5.6. Currently shipping product is Retrospect 6.0.

 

To clarify, you want for us to load the Exabyte driver?

 

You do not need to load the Exabyte drivers. The Windows Device Manager will see a drive with or without drivers - without drivers a device will usually show up as an unknown device or will load Windows drivers. If the system does not detect it even as an unknown device, it will not be visible to Retrospect.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have the exact same problem running Retrospect 6.0 Single Server with my Exabyte VXA 1x10 with Windows 2000 Server (sp3).

 

I have tried 4 different SCSI cards, re-installed Retrospect and yet, it only appears correctly in Configure-->Device-->Status randomly.

 

I made sure the SCSI ids are 5 for the library and 2 for the drive as per the Retrospect FAQ.

 

The tape library is the only SCSI device connected to an ATTO UL2S ExpressPCI card.

The rest of the devices in the system are connected to the internal IDE controllers.

(3 HDs and a CD-R drive)

 

If I swap the RDU file, for instance, put the Dec 2002 one into the Retrospect directory and then start Retrospect...it will usually re-detect the Tape library and see it correctly.

Then I run my backup.

The next day I'll check Devices and Retrospect will have them separated again and it will Not be able to perform the backup or even perform Properties on the Tape Library.

So I'll copy the Feb. 2003 RDU in and Retrospect will reset something and see the Tape Library again...so I'll run my backup.

And So on...

What is Retrospect resetting when I copy in a new RDU and can I force it to do that in some other way?

 

In Device Manager of Windows I have

Unknown Medium Changer Device

and

! Excrix VXA Drive

 

If anyone has an idea...I would really appreciate it.

- Tod

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks for the response Amy. I have gotten Retrospect 5.15 to see the drive by setting the Autopak 1x10 to run in EXB-210 emulation mode (this is explained on p.20-22 of the Autopak manual for all my comrades out there, you enable it on the Autopak's face control panel). cool.gif There is only one problem though - when I want to manage tapes in the drive, they all come up as "Unknown", and any command buttons like scan media, erase tape, or erase all elicit no response from the drive.

 

 

 

Is there a knack for working with libraries that is different from working with single tape drives? I admit I've never worked with libraries & autoloading drives before - the manual has precious little to say about library usage.

 

 

 

Many thanks,

 

Dan

Link to comment
Share on other sites

After spending some quality time with Exabyte, I found that I needed to do the following:

 

1-Make the drive emulate EXB-210 on the drives LCD control panel (reboot)

2-Download/install the VXA2 tool (from Exabyte's website) and set the initialization string on it to VXA-1 (reboot - the SCSI BIOS should now see a EXB-210 autoloader with a VXA-1 drive)

3-I did not see this at first, but the VXA-1 drive was needing a driver, which I eventually saw as I looked at the Device Manager). I downloaded the VXA-1 Windows 2000 driver from Exabyte and installed it. I did not reboot, but you might want to. In either case, Retrospect worked fine after I did that.

 

This was pretty much the only thing that worked while I tried to get this drive to work with Retrospect 5.15. You 6.0 users shouldn't have the problem, but you might want to try this and see if it helps you.

 

My best,

Dan Gapinski

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Quote:

I have tried 4 different SCSI cards, re-installed Retrospect and yet, it only appears correctly in Configure-->Device-->Status randomly.

 


 

Try temporarily removing the Retrospect configuration files from the following path to a safe location:

 

C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Retrospect

 

config60

config60.bak

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...