SureStore DAT24 - reduction in the capacity of the tape

[CA944769]

i have Dell 2300 poweredge, OS- NT4.0 SP6A, with SureStore DAT24 running with ARCServe 6.61 (Build 834sp2a).

I have been getting errors : Unable to find media ( this happens in the middle of the backup)
- Error while reading and writing data to the tape. There has been a reduction in the capacity of the tape.

I tried using a cleaning tape, recreate a new backup job, changing a few new tapes.

I don't want to go to the conclusion that the tape drive is going bad because the eventlog doesn't show any errors regarding the the Tape Drive.

it runs on one night, and errors on the 2nd night. I need help.

Thanks

[Eugeny Brychkov]

Kerwin,
it depends. Possible causes: 1. drive has difficulties writing to the tape; 2. data became less compressible (if using compression).
DAT drives should be cleaned regularly - after each 5 full backups or 20 tape pulling hours. Failing to follow this rule will cause drive to fail prematurely.
Please try HP LTT http://h18006.www1.hp.com/products/storageworks/ltt/index.html to check if drive's compression is on and works well. Check drive's logs. Try some various tests. Look at LTT's conclusion
Eugeny

[Rothery Harris]

Dear Kerwin,

You can lose capacity because the drive is re-writing blocks of data because of read after write failures. You may have increaseing error rate due to tape head or media problems. Try using Library & Tape Tools to check the error logs.

Rothery

[Srivas]

Please check if you are using correct HP tapes alone or u are using HP compatible tapes. The "compatibles" never work. I used to run into problems using a 3M cleaning tape.

Hope this helps

[Sean Obee]

The drive may be having trouble finding the file header to begin a backup if you are using another brand of tapes. You can perform a quick erase using the Windows NT Backup Applet by going to a command prompt and typing --> ntbackup.exe /nopoll
Select Operations -> Erase Tape from the menu
Make sure you stop any instances of backup services before you try this.

Sean