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Tape drive rewinds then ejects the tape

We have a Dell PowerVault 110T DLT1/VStape drive which has recently started to fail backups with the following error message:
"The operation was not performed because no unused media was available."

After closer inspection it appears the tape drive feeds the tape as normal, rewinds the tape.. And then Ejects the tape... Almost as if it's a cleaning tape..

Theres no error lights or cleaning lights on the drive.. And even after running the cleaning tape, it seems to make no difference.

We use NTBackup over most of our sites, and have nothing but trouble with it..

However, I have never seen anything like this before, and shot of changing the drive I dont know where to start!

Thanks

Member_2_231077

If it's win2k check the version of ntbackup.exe against http://support.microsoft.com/kb/267574/EN-US/

David Wall

This sounds as if the job is appending the data to the tape and is looking to write to the next tape or somesuch.

What size is the tape compared to how much are you backing up?

Has the job been changed recently.

David

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dovidmichel

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David Wall

Anothet thing to try is submitting a new job and see if that does the same.

MikeSel

ASKER

Thanks all for your suggestions..

The tape drive does this even when its not trying to do a backup job!

So I guess its a hardware failure...

I will swap out the drive an see if that helps

Dean Chafee

This actually sounds like an incompatible media problem... Like a DLT II tape put in your DLT I drive. DLT drives check media compatibility upon load and determine the media type, they will spit them out just as you explained if it is not recognised. So, are you using an existing "Known good" tape or is this new, and have you tried a tape that was previously written by this drive?
FS-

MikeSel

ASKER

We have seven tapes we have been using for sometime now.

They have worked fine until now.

Doubt they would have all failed at same time?!?

Dean Chafee

Yup... like you said, sounds like drive failure. Hope it's on Dell support so you can get them to replace it. We have to get our Dell PV 122t replaced at least once per year!
FS-

rindi

You can't use the same tapes forever. Get a new tape and first try that. If it doesn't autoeject, just replace the tapes!

MikeSel

ASKER

Dont think its covered by support. :(

I will try a new tape, just out of interest...

Thanks guys

MikeSel

ASKER

Will be installing a new Tape Drive on Friday hopefully!

So that should sort it!