BE9 4175 & seagate autoloader - must recycle tape drive to work

[Cleo02]

BackupExec 9 build 4175
Novell Netware 6 sp3
Seagate Scorpion Autoloader (which is a bad piece of hardware IMHO)

I am not sure if this issue is BE, the netware version or the autoloader.

A backup job runs fine. The magazine is ejected and the tapes are changed. An inventory is run and the following error occurs:

Job completed with error. NDMP error NDMP_NO_DEVICE_ERROR (16)Unable to open target media device. The device may be unavailable or it may not be responding.

The tape drive is turned off and then on. An inventory job is submitted and it runs fine.

Any thoughts regarding this problem? Thanks.

 

[SQLBill]

Instead of turning off the tape drive, what happens if you wait a minute and resubmit the inventory job?

It could be that the drive is still in the 'state' of accepting the new tape.

(I've had this happen, that's why I'm suggesting retry the inventory after loading the new tape and waiting a minute.) Even though it's not inventorying the tape; the drive still needs to do a quick read of the tape to find:
what information is on the header
what type of tape is it (is it compatable?)

-SQLBill

 

[Cleo02]

The timing does not seem to be an issue in this case. We have waited significant amounts of time, making sure the autoloader has scanned all tapes in the magazine and is ready and it still fails when the inventory is run. The only solution is to recycle the tape drive.

 

[SQLBill]

What's the status of the Backup Exec services when the inventory fails? Are they running or has something stopped them?

-SQLBill

 

[Cleo02]

Backup jobs have completed and are fine. No other jobs are running at the time the inventory job is submitted.