Hi,

Can anyone please help with this?  Our Tape Drive died and we got a new one from our Maintenance Company. Since then large backups to tape are failing.  When the jobs are small they seem to go through OK but when the job is greater than around 200GB then it fails with the error below.

I tried updating the tape drive driver but Windows said that the drive wasn't functioning properly any more.

The only difference between the old faulty drive and the new drive is the firmware.  We used to have A422 in the old drive.  The new drive has  D8D5.  Can someone please help as it's driving me crazy.

"Affected area: IBM TotalStorage 3573 Tape Library
Occurred since: 03/03/2015 10:19:37
Description: Library drive IBM ULTRIUM 5 HH 3580 TAPE DRIVE (1068006186) in IBM TotalStorage 3573 Tape Library is not functioning and library jobs may fail until the drive is repaired.  The drive is not functioning for the following reason:
 (ID 3303)
DPM encountered a critical error while performing an I/O operation on the tape Physical Servers-LT-MonthlyBackup-00000235 (000086L4) (Barcode - 000086L4) in Drive IBM ULTRIUM 5 HH 3580 TAPE DRIVE (1068006186). (ID 30101 Details: Data error (cyclic redundancy check) (0x80070017))
More information
Recommended action: Retry the operation. If the problem persists, contact your hardware vendor.
No action required
Resolution: To dismiss the alert, click below
Inactivate"

Regards

Willie

Hi,

It sounds like another faulty drive - You can try to reproduce the problem outside of DPM using some external utilities.   If you get an error before the tape fills you can use net helpmsg errorcode to see what the error was.

Download the DPMerasetape.zip file from the following link and extract to c:\temp folder.

https://onedrive.live.com/?cid=b03306b628ab886f&id=B03306B628AB886F%21524&sc=documents

The utilities are not that user friendly, but here are the basics.

Always Stop DPMLA Service prior to running MCT.EXE Commands.

  NET STOP DPMLA

C:\> mct-x64.exe -p

Opening changer \\.\Changer0

     ********** Changer Parameters **********

         Number of Transport Elements : 1
         Number of Storage Elements : 50
         Number of Cleaner Slots : 0
         Number of of IE Elements : 0
         Number of NumberDataTransferElements : 6
         Number of Doors : 0

         First Slot Number : 0
         First Drive Number : 0
         First Transport Number : 0
         First IEPort number : 0
         First Cleaner Slot Address : 0

         Magazine Size : 0

         Drive Clean Timeout : 600

  Flags set for the changer :
         CHANGER_BAR_CODE_SCANNER_INSTALLED
         CHANGER_POSITION_TO_ELEMENT
         CHANGER_STORAGE_DRIVE
         CHANGER_STORAGE_SLOT
         CHANGER_DRIVE_CLEANING_REQUIRED
         CHANGER_VOLUME_IDENTIFICATION
         CHANGER_VOLUME_SEARCH
         CHANGER_SERIAL_NUMBER_VALID

 Changer can move from Slot to :
                 Slot
                 Drive

 Changer can move from Drive to :
                 Slot
                 Drive

 Changer is Capable of positioning transport to Slot.
 Changer is Capable of positioning transport to Drive.

C:\> mct-x64.exe -d

Opening changer \\.\Changer0
Product Data for Medium Changer device :
  Vendor Id    : STK
  Product Id   : L180
  Revision     : 030
  SerialNumber : 3077520000

For MCT utility we have the  -m [MOVE] command to move media around inside the library.

-m [ElemType-T] Transport# [ElemType-Source] S_lot#/D_rive# [ElemType-Destination] S_lot#/D_rive#

Get / view command syntax for m (move) command for changer 0

C:\>mct-x64 0 -m

Opening changer \\.\Changer0
MoveMedium : mct -m t N s\d N s\d N   [Where s/d means Slot or Drive and N is ZERO based].

Some Examples:

mct-x64 -m t 0 s 0 d 0    (Using transport-0, move media from slot-0  to drive-0)
mct-x64 -m t 0 d 0 s 0    (Using transport-0, move media from drive-0 to slot-0)
mct-x64 -m t 0 s 0 s 100  (Using transport-0, move media from slot-0  to slot-100)
mct-x64 -m t 0 d 0 d 1    (Using transport-0, move media from drive-0 to drive-1)
mct-x64 -m t 0 s 0 ie 0   (Using transport-0, move media from slot-0  to IEPort 0)

Once you move a tape into a drive, use mytape commands Loadtape, taperewind, locktape, Disable hardware compression, Set block size to 65536 (64K), writeforspanning.

You need the symbolic name for the tape drive you loaded media into - look in the DPM console by clicking the tape drive and look at the details for \\.\tape########.  use that in the following command.

Mytape.exe \\.\Tape2147483638

Status: Getting the handle for \\.\Tape2147483638...Success

TapeConsole_1.0>taperewind">\\.\Tape2147483638>TapeConsole_1.0>taperewind

Status: Rewinding Tape ...Success

TapeConsole_1.0>setdriveinfo">\\.\Tape2147483638>TapeConsole_1.0>setdriveinfo

Hardware error correction  [y]-Enable / [n] Disable : y
Hardware data compression  [y]-Enable / [n] Disable : N   (BE SURE TO DISABLE)
Data padding  [y]-Enable / [n] Disable : n
Setmark reporting   [y]-Enable / [n] Disable : n
Number of bytes between the end-of-tape warning and the physical end of the tape: 0
Status: Setting Drive Information...Success

TapeConsole_1.0>writeforspanning">\\.\Tape2147483638>TapeConsole_1.0>writeforspanning

Status: Writing onto tape...Failed !!!
Error_ID reported: 1100                 (net helpmsg 1100 = The physical end of the tape has been reached.
Number of bytes written: 983040     (Ignore bytes written, we'll get physical tape position later)
Giving up
Time taken: 15788ms

TapeConsole_1.0>taperewind">\\.\Tape2147483638>TapeConsole_1.0>taperewind

Status: Rewinding Tape ...Success

REPEAT TapeConsole_1.0>erasetape">\\.\Tape2147483638>TapeConsole_1.0>erasetape s

Short erase / Long Erase [s/l]:Status: Erasing the tape...Success

\\.\Tape2147483646...Success

c:\>mct-x64.exe -m t 0 d 0 s 0

Opening changer \\.\Changer0
Source is a Drive
Destination is a Slot
Move : Transport - 0, Src - 0, Dest - 0