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astor123

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Backup Exec 10d Error: Ready; no idle devices are available

With anything that I try to do on my Overland Tape Library I get the following error:

ready; no idle devices are available

I just installed the latest drivers for Backup Exec, etc... I have restarted numerous times and nothing... I can restart how many times  Iwant because it is a dedicated server for this.

Please help

Thanks
Carlos
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Member_2_231077

Disable removable storage service, Exit BE GUI, run tapeinst.exe an uninstall all drivers, reboot, cancel any windows found new hardware, download and run http://seer.support.veritas.com/docs/284707.htm, reboot, normally works if hardware is working.

Re-enable removable storage and test hardware with ntbackup if above does not work.
I have couple of solutions that you can follow:

http://www.aarvy.com/tech/ready%20no%20idle%20devices%20available.htm

Good Luck.
Might be as simple as the tape drive or even the whole server is paused.
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ASKER

Tried them all RTechnikal but didnt work...

Andyalder, what do you mean by it being paused?

thanks
Paused as in http://support.veritas.com/docs/192098 

How many tape drives in the library? Is it shared on a SAN with a storage router or just on a single server?
1 drive (10 tapes) its a single server
I still think it's the drivers. If you just install the latest drivers without using tapeinst to uninstall the old ones it doesn't always do the install even though it shows it as installed.
i've used tapeinst to uninstall.. ah.. this is frutrating
I presume you've seen http://seer.entsupport.symantec.com/docs/277425.htm

Stopping the Windows removable media service might help, and checking if there's any other backup software or diagnostics loaded although that's unlikely after a reboot.
andyalder,

whenever I do an 'import' of a slot, it does it just fine.. but to do anything else, it wont....um

Beats me, I'll unsub and see if anyone else has the answer. A tape in the drive and all the slots full woulld be my next guess but it's a 10.x only error and poorly doccumented at the moment. I almost asked for downgrade rights to 9.1 last time I saw it.
I have experienced this problem as well.  Here are some things to look at:

1.  Can you do an inventory of any of the tapes?  If so, then you need to change your job to use the correct device.  (If you uninstall drivers, reboot, reinstall, Backup Exec will think you have a new tape drive - so the old device your job is pointing to will not work.)

2.  If an inventory does the same thing
   - Disable the drive (right click on it, uncheck Enable) & the library/autoloader.
   - Delete all drives and the library/autoloader.
   - Exit the GUI, run Tapeinst, select Uninstall and remove all Symantec device drivers from your system and Delete entries for tape devices that are no longer available.
   - Verify Removable Storage service is Disabled (unless you need it for some other thing on the machine).
   - Reboot & log in as the administrator
   - Run BEUtility and click Yes
   - Add your server into All Media Servers (right click on it)
   - Right click on your server on the right, select Repair Database and whatever it asks you it needs to do
   - After that is done, run Tapeinst (or the latest device driver install) & reboot
   - Run an inventory - if that is successful, change your backup jobs to point to the new tape drive/library/autoloader
jmjcmdctr

I followed you directions strictly. Nothing... still says the same BS.

I used to have Retrospect, which I uninstalled before installing backup exec... might be related to that?
Can you do an inventory of the tape?  Has this ever worked correctly?  Is Removable Storage disabled?
removable storage is disabled. I cannot do inventory. I mean, it does show me all the tapes, but whenver I hit "inventory", it just stays in the error..
It is possible Retrospect didn't totally uninstall.

Any events in the event log?

In Device Manager, make sure the tape library is showing up as a "Unknown Medium Changer" - if not, change the driver to that.  Sometimes that can make this problem happen.  Make sure the drivers for the tape drive is showing up with a Veritas driver.

From the tape library, can you move tapes around using the front panel?  Load them in the drive, unload them, etc?

Have you tried uninstalling the Veritas drivers and installing the Overland drivers?  There was one time we couldn't use the Veritas drivers for some unknown reason.

Worst case -

Uninstall Veritas drivers, reboot.  Install the Overland drivers.  Enable Removable Storage, try a backup with Windows Backup (inventory the tapes inside Removable Storage Manager and do an erase on one of them) before running a backup.  If that doesn't work, it is almost definately a SCSI problem.  If it does work, try disabling Removable Storage and using the Overland drivers.
In the device manager i see
Medium Changers
  --> Overland LibraryXpress Medium Changers

In the last message you say "change the driver to that", please specify what you mean.

thanks

carlos
Carlos,

Change the driver to Unknown Medium Changer.  Double click device, driver tab, Update Driver button, Install from a list, don't search.  Select Unknown Medium Changer.  Reboot after it installs.  You might need to delete the devices in Backup Exec, uninstall drivers using Tapeinst and reinstall before it can see it correctly.

Michael
Oh my god ...

Michael, I did it all like you said.. changed to the unknown medium changer, and the rest... then backup exec wouldnt recognize anything so I had to run the device wizard and it found it and etc..

after I select "inventory", it hangs :Ready No idle devices are available!

carlos
Anything in the event logs?  Let me think about this over the weekend.
nothing... alright

thanx
Carlos,

After thinking about this, have you tried uninstalling BE?  Uninstall Backup Exec, Veritas Update, Remote Agent, etc.  When uninstalling, BE will prompt if you want to keep your data.  I would suggest you do not.  After uninstalling, make sure all the tape drives and libraries are gone from Device Manager.  Uninstall any Retrospect and Overland drivers you might find in Add/Remove Programs.  Reboot.  Install Backup Exec.

If that doesn't work, I think rebuilding the server from scratch is the only other option.

Michael
I formatted, reinstalled the whole thing from scratch...
same error...

um... wtf!?
I fixed the problem already.

The problem was that the library scsi ID was higher than the loader ID. I lowered it from 6 to 4. It is working fine now.

here is more details:

Check/change the following:
Backup Exec needs to have the SCSI id of the changer lower than the id of the drive. By default the Library has the changer at id 6 and the drives at a lower id. If the changer id is higher than the drive when the device is added to Backup Exec the drive will not be associated with the changer, it will show as a standalone drive.

select the configure menu from the front panel of the library.  Under the configure menu you will see the menu scsi options.  Please use the up and down error keys to change the scsi id of the library.

After changing the scsi id of the library please reboot the library.  After the library has fully initialized, please reboot your server."

This fixed my issues.

Thanks to overland storage support.
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