Read Error restoring files

[Ayman Altounji]

I am using a Compaq DLT 20/40 External drive on an Adaptec 2930 u2 SCSI card on Windows 2000 professional. I used the Windows 2000 backup utility to back up selected files to tape and the backup executed without failures. But when I tried to test the backup by restoring some of the files from tape to a different location I get a read error everytime. I tried this with two different tapes with the same result. It does read the library but it appears to be rewinding or fastforwarding when it fails. The read error states that there was a hardware failure during read operation. Windows 2000 detected the drive as a Compaq Quantum DLT 20/40 drive. Do I need updated drivers? Is the drive bad?

[Ayman Altounji]

I had the same problem with restoring files backed up on a Netware box to a different Netware box. The problem was caused by compression being enabled on the backed up volume and not enabled on the target volume. Enabling compression on the target volume resolved the problem. I don't know much about compression etc on Win2k volumes but it is worth considering before replacing the drive etc.