TL891 DLX Library Tape Load Question

[CA926681]

I have the captioned library with two 40/80 drives on a DL380 first generation runing under W2K SP3. I use BackupExec 8.6 with the Library option to run my backups. For the last few backup runs the first DLT drive has started reporting the followin error through Backup Exec "Device: DLT 4 - 1 (myserver)
The tape drive is having problems reading data. No data has been lost but there has been a reduction in the performance of the tape. "

The backups complete successfully but they really mean it when they say performance will be affected.

I looked at Veritas for information but found nothing really specific.

I loaded the latest HP Storeage Works Library and Tape storage tools and tried to run the read/write tests on the drive. And here is my problem, I cannot figure out how to load a tape into the drive. The read/write tests require a tape be in the drive but I've looked everywhere and cannot find any way to load the tape. I know it is something dumb I am overlooking but if anyone knows a simple way to get a tape loaded either using Backup Exec or the Storage works tools I would be appreciative.

Thanks

Greg Pagan

[Claudio Ruzza]

Greg,
to move media in a TL891 without any appl sw you can simply use the Library front Panel.
Press enter, and then load/unload media. The menu is really simple and straight forward.
Please check also if your drives have the same firmware release (front panel: press escape and move first to dlt0, enter, have a look and then repeat for dlt1). If not, call you hardware supplier.
Good luck.

P.S. Best if you run bestop.bat (do you know it? Look for in your Backup Exec server!)
in order to kill Backup Exec and run freely with tests.

[CA713937]

The embedded drive test in LTT do not automatically load tapes in a library.

LTT has a move media function for some libraries. It is under the "front panel" icon. For a few pre-merger HP libraries it implements a remote front panel instead (which can be used to load/unload tapes). There are a few libraries where we don't have either of these. I'm not sure where the TL series falls.

The message you noticed from Backup Exec is from the tape drive "tape alerts". It is generated when drive is having soft errors. It could be caused by a dirty head, poor media, or a warnout drive head. The recommended way to test this is by using the "DLT Acceptance test" in LTT with a known good (i.e. new) tape. It will check the drive's error rate performance.