Random reduction in tape capacity

[Ayman Altounji]

Using NT4 Sp6a with BackupExec v8.0 rev 3316. Everything sweet for some time (nearly a year). Now we are getting failures after backing up varying amounts of data onto 20/40Gb DDS4 tapes with a compaq DDS4 internal DAT (Compaq SDT10000) - amount of successful data backed up varies between 11 and 21GB. We then get prompted for a second tape. I have tried judicious use of a cleaning tape and brand new DDS tapes but that does not resolve the problem.

The BackupExec report states "the tape drive is having problems writing the data. No data has been lost, but there is a reduction in the capacity of the tape". There is nothing extra in the NT event logs, although there are occasional NT System errors - event ID 11 with source ccdsn4i, "The driver detected a controller error on \Device\Tape0". I thought it may be time related but have checked the logs and the length of time before failure is random, and in any case not excessive. I am therefore starting to think that the DAT drive may be failing. Does anyone know otherwise, or of anything else I could try by way of trouble shooting?

[Ayman Altounji]

Not able to help with this query Simon, but I am about to embark on installing an internal Compaq SDT 10000 on an Nt4 server. I am currently using Veritas backup exec V 7.3 on an old Sony DAT which work fine (but is too small). Do you know if V7.3 will be compatible with the compaq drive, or do I need to upgrade to 8.x?