Ultrium 1 drive, hardware failure?

[Jonathan Sachs]

Well, the problem seems to have been ZoneAlarm. Earlier this week I replaced it with Norton Internet Security. Since then I have run five consecutive differential backups without a failure on five consecutive days. Before that I was lucky if I could get one differential backup in three to work.

I still don't know what ZoneAlarm was doing to me, and probably never will.

I'm posting this in hope that it will save someone else the hours of headbanging and months of disruption that I suffered.

[Jonathan Sachs]

Well, I was mistaken. After a month of now-unexplained good behavior, my backups began failing again.

A member of another forum made some suggestions that I'm trying to follow up. One I can pursue without spending money or endangering my system stability is to update my SCSI adapter's drivers.

The adapter is an Adaptec 29160n. Adaptec's "Windows XP Downloads" page lists two downloads that could be relevant, which appear to contain the same driver files. Both have files dated February and March 2004, and version number 6.4.630.100. The driver I have installed is version 5.1.2600.1106, dated 7/1/2001.

I have acquired both downloads and tried to install them. With both, the
Installer displays a message that says, "Cannot Continue the Hardware
Update Wizard / The wizard could not find a better match for your
hardware than the software you currently have installed."

This is weirdness. The web site presents these downloads for my adapter card; the downloads contain a driver which claims to have a later date and release number than mine; and the installer says it "could not find a better match" in them. Can anyone suggest a way out of this dilemma?

Adaptec, unfortunately, does not seem likely to help. They won't provide support even by e-mail unless I purchase a support subscription, and they do not appear to have a user forum of their own. I described the problem in the USENET newsgroup for SCSI devices, but the only response I got was sarcastic rather than helpful.

This problem has drifted somewhat far afield from HP tape backup devices, but I seem to have no other source of assistance. I hope someone here can make suggestions.

[Jonathan Sachs]

Three months later, I'm still wrestling with this. I have eliminated every possible failure point except Windows XP, the tape drive itself, and the other hardware in my system (excepting the SCSI data cable and terminator, the SCSI adapter, and the display adapter, all of which I have replaced).

While trying to solve an unrelated problem I came across a note in Microsoft's knowledge base that HP has released a "Other Hardware software update" that concerns the Ultrium-1 drive. They say it was published on 4/27/2007 and its download size is 21 kB, which makes it sound like a driver rather than a utility update. For further information they refer me to HP's web site, where I can find nothing to match that date and size.

The note does not appear to have a loadable URL, but I saved a snapshot of it, which I am uploading with this message.

Does anybody know what this update is, and how to find it? Might it be relevant to my problem?

[Amal el-hawrani]

Hi Jonathan,

One thing you should check is whether your drive is actively terminated or not (there should be a green led next to the scsi connectors marked 'ACT TERM'). This is the case with HP ultrium-1 drives and I would expect it to still be the case with your OEM/re-badged drive. You do not need to use a terminator with a drive that has active termination.

To install the newer 2004 Adaptec drivers you just need to uninstall your previous driver and then force install one of the newer 2004 drivers in its place. You can always restore to the older driver (using system restore in windows) if the newer drivers don't solve your erratic backup problems.

I am unsure what microsoft's knowledge base is referencing to by 'other hardware software update'. There is nothing matching that size or date of release, however the only functionality that would have been added in a new release for ultrium 1 would be ultrium 4 support and hence I would be surprised if such a driver would solve your problem.

I would recommend updating the adaptec driver and check whether your drive has active termination or not.

Please let me know how you get on.

Amal

[Jonathan Sachs]

Well, I've thought this before, but I'm pretty sure I've solved the problem.

Early in June I replaced Windows Backup with NovaBACKUP. I didn't think that was likely to help, but it was a lot cheaper than replacing the tape drive, so I thought I'd give it a try. The problem went away. Over the next month or so I performed a differential backup almost every day, and never had a failure.

Early in July I had a problem with NovaBACKUP which forced me to go back to Windows Backup temporarily. I ran a new full backup, which worked, as it always did. The first subsequent differential backup also worked, but the second one failed.

Around the middle of July I was able to resume using NovaBACKUP, and over the following two weeks I ran a differential backup almost every day with no problems.

I now wonder whether this was also the problem with the DLT drive that I had before this LTO drive. I never got it to work reliably, but I thought it was failing because it wasn't designed to be used in a home environment (I had two cats at the time). It was otherwise perfectly good for my needs, and the tapes were a lot cheaper! I'd have been better off if I had been able to make it work, completely apart from the year of hassles I've suffered.

[David IMV]

Hey, I was having a similar issue but the led screen read "C" and the light was blinking.

All I did was use the clean tape and the problem was solved.

Hope that helps!