hp autolader and windows 2000

[andy proctor]

i have a similar problem with both ntbackup and arcserve running on a standard win 2000 server sp3, i am using the hpdat.sys driver and have a C5713A autoloader, the os can see the device but no media is recognised using the two backup solutions - anyone had similar probs with W2KSP4?

[Marino Meloni_1]

hi,
the hpdat.sys driver is ok, you should see in device manager the tape and the media changer.
to use NT backup (Window applet) Removable services need to be active (default), and you should be able to see and manage the cartridges in Removable storage under console management, and you need to format prepare and mount the cartridges before to be able to use it.
if you want to use arcserve, you should stop removable services in order to let the device be managed by Arcserve. in this case you do not need the W2K drivers, you can also disble the divices because Arcserve will load his own drivers

[andy proctor]

Hi Marino,
thanks for the feedback but ive tried this with the following results;
ntbackup: cannot backup because the on media identifier did not match what was expected, in device manager i can only see the tape library.
in arcserve:cannot backup because arcserve cannot find any available media in the pool....i think that maybe both backup solutions do not "see" the autoloader but treat it as a standalone tape library, is it down to how the SCSI LUN's are mapped?
thanks in advance
also when going into arcserve job status the software crashes with an invisible Dr.Watson's?

[Marino Meloni_1]

first you need to enable lun setting in the bios of you HBA
then you should see the two devices at boot time and/or in th bios of the HBA controller.
If both devices (Changer device and Tape device) appear at boot time, window should see it in Device Manager and load the default driver for both devices.

[andy proctor]

Hi Marino,
too much of a headache in the end i threw in another scsi controller and all is well....last question though, does ntbackup work with autoloaders?

[Marino Meloni_1]

yes, ntbackup for w2k can manage autoloader through the "Removable storage" service, but it is not so friendly, you had to go in removable storage (in console management) and prepare (format) each support, then mount them. When they will be in the Free pool, they will be available for the Ntbackup appplet

[andy proctor]

thanks Marino!
there seems to be a lot of conflicting info regarding the support of autoloaders and ntbackup, i know i can get ntbackup to use the different tapes on different days but can you span tapes using ntbackup?

[Marino Meloni_1]

Unfortunately I do not have a response for this question, I could sugget you to check on the knowledge base of microsoft, I see in the past some documents which spoke about RMS and NTBackup in W2K, probably you will find some goods infos there

marino

[andy proctor]

Hi Marino,
it seems that you cannot span tapes, just tell backup to use different tapes on different days.
i have a problem with ntbackup! within rsm it reads the tape autoloader as empty but within the media section it sees my tapes. these tapes were previously prepared by arcserve and i cannot format/prepare or mount them with ntbackup. i dont think the media is recognised, maybe because it's been used by arcserve? any ideas?

[Marino Meloni_1]

hi Andy,
I do not know why you cannot format it, but is the problem is the previous format of the cartridges, and you want to clear all, run the read/write test with L&TT (at the moment a scipt that will format the tapes is not yet available) and then rescan the autoloader to discover the tapes, and then formt it within ntbackup