Tape drive disappears randomly from device manager

[Norrie Crawford2]

The tape drive keeps disappearing from device manager. To date I have:
Changed the system board on the server which has the SCSI controller and SCSI connector embedded on the board.
Changed the SCSI cable between the server and the external tape drive.
Changed the tape drive.

The SCSI controller (HP 64bit/66mhz Dual Channel Wide Ultra 3 SCSI Controller) using driver adpu160m.sys reports a controller error just before the tape drive disappears from the Device Manager. The adpu160m.sys driver according to your driver list is currently at Version 6.4.645.100 (E) however there is no difference in the adpu160m.sys file for versions (C), (D) or (E). Can you please confirm the purpose of the updated drivers release when the actual driver file does not change? Can you please tell me how to force the server to change the driver to another copy in case the copy being used is corrupt? Thanks. Norrie.

[Norrie Crawford2]

Sorry, I should have mentioned that the machine is an HP Proliant ML370 G3 running SBS2003 Standard SP2. The tape drive is an HP Ultrium 230 LTO Surestore.

[Pete2010]

Download HP StorageWorks Library and Tape Tools and update the firmware on the device. Then run the diagnostics. Have a blank tape handy. If the report indicates an error, you may need to call HP harware support to confirm its bad. Its also possible the firmware update may fix it issue.

the link: http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareDescription.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&prodTypeId=12169&prodSeriesId=4150338&swItem=co-87447-1&prodNameId=4150339&swEnvOID=1005&swLang=8&taskId=135&mode=4&idx=0

[Norrie Crawford2]

The firmware is already up to date. It is version E32D. I have run LT&T and the health and support tickets give the drive (both drives) a clean bill of health.

The disappearance from device manager is always preceded with an event ID 11 which is a fault with the SCSI controller. Since I have replaced the system board (which has the SCSI controller embedded upon it) I feel that the issue must be related to the adpu160m.sys driver.

[Norrie Crawford2]

I should mention that I have inserted a blank tape and executed all of the drive tests. Again, the drive reports that its fine.