TAPE DRIVE EMPTY

[egroeg]

Hi, Running Veeam 7.x with latest patch set.

Connected to a SAS Tape library, Dell TL4000. The library is on with all new tapes inside.

Sadly, Veeam shows the tape menu, but all slots are marked as empty. We've put new tapes in to ensure it wasnt an old software masking the media. We've also checked there isnt any (and never was) any other backup agent on that server (new server running server 2012 R2).

Empty tapes - any ideas?

[foggy]

George, have you tried to start Inventory job after inserting the tapes into drive?

[egroeg]

Hi Foggy.

Yes, I've right clicked on both loaders, conducted an Inventory and Catalog. A small dialogue box appears saying Loader is successfully unlocked, then tape drive is empty. I've also done an inventory from the tape library management console also.

This tape loader was previously connected to another server running backup exec and it could see all of the tapes just fine. I want to avoid installing backup exec on my veeam server as a test as will leave a load of symantec mess on the server.

Any other thoughts?

Much appreciated!

[foggy]

It would be highly appreciated if you could open a case with our technical support (and post the ID here so I could point Tier 2 guys to it directly). There seem to be a number of issues with this particular device and we would like to look at it closer. Thank you.

[Dima P.]

Hello George,

We faced the same issue with the Dell TL2000 library and it was resolved by installing the correct version of drivers. Please, take a look at this post.

Thank you.

[egroeg]

Thanks for the link, that did steer me in the right direction, but sadly no cigar.

I ended up calling Dell Suppport in the end and spoke to one of the UK Support team - David Sherlock (was very good!), and he identified that although we could see the individual tape drives in windows device manager, the Dell driver hadnt automatically added the tape changer device (I was unaware of how to do this, nor aware it needed to be present).

As soon as this was done, the device changed from being a "IBM LTO XXX" driver to showing "IBM 3575 TLC 30" and Veeam then could just see a single target in it's Backup Infrastructure window and BINGO, all the tapes.

Thanks Veeam / Thanks Dell / David.

[foggy]

George, glad you could finally solve it, thanks for sharing. Indeed, in order for Veeam B&R to work properly with the tape library, both tape drives and medium changer should be correctly displayed in Device Manager.

[sibinsam]

Hi,

I am also facing a similar problem with Dell PowerVault TL4000 (LTO6) tape library. This was installed last week after removing the existing LTO4 tape library. Connected to backup server through fibre chanel switch. Veeam recognizes the tape library and shows the tapes inside the library but does not see the tape drives itself. All the drivers for medium changer and tape drives are installed from Dell website.
Tried installing non_exclusive drivers (also exclusive just to test) but whatever we try to do Veeam does not see the tape drives. We have Symantec installed on the server which we were using previously befire migrating to Veeam.
Symantec sees the drives fine without having to install any additional drivers. Just to test I installed symantec drivers and suddenly Veeam sees the tape drives however no operations can be performed (read,write, erase, inventory etc.).
Veeam support engineer was working on this yesterday and we removed all the drivers and installed them again from Dell website which has not fixed the issue. Support engineer recommended to speak to Dell to check if the tape drives are able to communicate to the windows server.
The tape drives seems to communicate fine with symantec without installing any of symantec's drivers. (I tried to write some data and also erase which works perfectly fine). So i dont believe this to be Dell issue. Honestly i dont prefer to speak to Dell as the engineer does not even seem to have heard of Veeam.
Any suggestions (Case # 00816972)

[sibinsam]

Just got off the call with Dell. According to them a hotfix from Microsoft has to be installed (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2619836) which will provide support for LTO6 drives. Will install this tomorrow and check on the drive status.

[veremin]

If possible, I'd also uninstall Symantec from that sever (or disable its services/drivers completely) to exclude it from the list of potential suspects.

[sibinsam]

Went ahead with this update today itself. This was indeed the issue. On installing the update and rebooting the server the drives were detected. Checked functions like read and write and it works fine.
The server OS was Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard SP1.

[veremin]

So, the missing hotfix was indeed an issue. Thank you for coming back and posting the resolution.

[sibinsam]

It seems windows server 2008 r2 does not recognize lto6 tape drives, even though the drives show up in device manager.