Backup error with Ultrium LTO2 drive

[Chrisby]

Hi,
My backup jobs were running perfectly until 2 months ago when all my 3 tape drives started giving me the "Unreadable media" media error when I bought new C7972A cartridges. I was using ArcServ BrightStor for Windows, and then decided to move to Data Protector Express 3.50. Still getting the Error 4039: Media data error detected.
The 3 tape drives are attached on 3 different server machines.
Even those tapes that were working before these new tapes are giving the same error message.
Any help please.

[SteveR22]

Have you tried formatting the tapes?
Have you tried a test backup to file, just to see if the program is working ok? It may shed some light.

[Chrisby]

Hi Steve22. I am not able to format the tapes, but I can successfully perform the backup in a file.

[Thomas Gallenkamp]

Chrisby,

I used to use Fuji LTO-2 tapes in our Ultrium 460 drive for 3 years (about 600 full backup runs on 50 tapes). No problems. We then introduced some TDK tapes and trouble started. No reliable readback on old and new tapes (when testing 1 month old tapes). May be an unrelated coincidence. Maybe that the fresh TDK tapes cause buildup of dirt.
I am now rereading each tape one day after backup. No errors on either TDK and Fuji so far. Probably the drive is broken ...

Until very recently I thought LTO is "rock solid". Now I am starting to believe it is as "reliable" as DDS used to be ever since (i.e.: Write-once, read-never).