v7 - Failed to eject tape Error: Cannot find tape drive

[RMullis]

I have created a test setup before implementing into production. I have a physical server connected via F/C to an IBM TS3200 robotic library. I have created a test media pool and have been testing "Backup to Tape". The system backs up the data-store as expected however the data is only 50GB so it isn't more data than 1 tape (LTO5). I have the job set to eject tape upon completion but when it finished writing to the tape and tries to eject I get this misspelled error "8/31/2013 4:17:29 PM :: Faield to eject tape Error: Cannot find tape drive (address: 0)". I can see the drive without any issue from the OS, Veeam and the TS3200 management console. I don't show any errors except in Veeam and if I manually eject the tape it works perfectly.

Does anyone have any ideas?

As always; any and all help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Rick

[veremin]

Hi, Rick. It seems that the corresponding drive wasn’t determined correctly after the cassette had been changed. So, it might be worth contacting our support team and letting them investigate it directly. Thanks.

[RMullis]

Thanks, will do.

Rick

[RMullis]

After thinking about this issue over night I found / fixed my issue. We use an IBM ts3100 at one datacenter and the IBM TS3200 at our corporate datacenter. I had downloaded the drivers and as any admin would do, I read the readme.txt file. There are 2 installers that come with it, install_exclusive which is the default recommended installer and since the Veeam documentation states it performs a lock on the drive this made sense. This is what the readme states:

install_exclusive.exe should be used by applications (such as Tivoli Storage Manager)
requiring the driver to issue automatic reserves on open and also preventing multiple
open handles from a host to a drive to exist at the same time.

Note: This option replaces the previous default installation of install.exe

But after failures everytime and a good nights sleep I thought since it looks like during the backup, the system takes the drive and it disappears from Veeam, so I started to think maybe I should try the other installer "install_nonexclusive" which states in the readme.txt

install_nonexclusive.exe should be used by applications (such as Microsoft Data
Protection Manager or Microsoft Removable Storage Manager) permitting multiple open
handles from a host to a drive to exist at the same time.

And now it works every time!!! Yipee. I just wanted to let you all know so you choose the correct driver the first time.

Now my only question is how to make the backup to tape to append data to an existing tape.

Thanks
Rick

[Dima P.]

Rick,
Thank you for the heads up - highly appreciated!

Now my only question is how to make the backup to tape to append data to an existing tape.

There is an option during media pool creation to overwrite "old media" - you can find it under Media Pool > Retention > Do not protect data.

[RMullis]

So this will append and not overwrite the existing data? So if a backup job just finishes writing to this tape and the next backup job for a different server starts it will leave existing data and just add this after my first backup?

[foggy]

So if a backup job just finishes writing to this tape and the next backup job for a different server starts it will leave existing data and just add this after my first backup?

Depending on the media pool's and jobs' settings. Basically, if both jobs are targeted to the same media pool and the pool has the 'continue using the current media set' option selected, they will append to the same tape according to the algorithm briefly described here, depending on the data protection settings specified for the pool.

[RMullis]

I have been testing this and it seems to be working flawlessly.

Now if I can just get past the Enterprise Manager error and get that component installed. Look like I will be contacting support on this one.

Thanks for all your help.

Rick