Network newbie in desperate need of help

[osprey1993]

Hello everyone,

My question is a bit hardware-ish.

I am running a Windows NT Server 4.0, with Arcserve 6.0 for NT as my backup software, using a Sony TSL 9000 8-tape Autoloader as my tape device.
Backups went well until about two weeks ago when almost every backup job (both incremental AND full) would either "fail" or get "cancelled". I would get all sorts of error codes, namely E6096, E3714.
Not only that, the backup transfer rate had gone down from 60-70MB/min normally, to about 10-15MB/min (it went as low as 2MB/min today!). It would back up only a few GBs of data then churn up these error codes,then cancel the jobs.
I rebooted the server, it didn't solve anything. I rebooted the tape drive, still no improvement.

I looked through Computer Associates' (vendors for Arcserve) online help, but suffice to say, that was as good as watching my clothes hang dry.

Almost lost, I contacted CA. They looked at my backup log and gave me a one sentence assistance;
"I think you need to fix the device problems." (some help, yah?)

Now doubly lost, I need some help in trying to pinpoint exactly what are the devices that I need to 'fix'. I think my server setup is pretty simple with one NT server holding a few drives of data, connected to the tape drive.

I am very new at the whole network thing, but this issue needs to be resolved as data backup is of utmost importance for my office. I am still in the process of learning, so please kindly offer some help.

I attached below part of the log that stated the more common errors in my backups.

20040810 123844 TAPE E8020 Failed to inventory slot(s) (EC=BAD TAPE)[Device:5][SONY ]
20040810 135707 TAPE E8003 Tape manually ejected from Drive [4], in changer [Device:5][SONY ]
20040810 135707 TAPE Successfully dismounted magazine:0 [Device:5][SONY ]
20040810 140439 TAPE E8020 Failed to inventory slot(s) (EC=BAD TAPE)[Device:5][SONY ]
20040810 140439 TAPE E8023 Failed to mount magazine:0 (EC=BAD TAPE)[Device:5][SONY ]
20040810 140446 TAPE E8003 Tape manually ejected from Drive [4], in changer [Device:5][SONY ]
...
20040811 010155 TAPE E6096 Media Error [ABSL:4020 CMD:Ah]
20040811 010155 182 E3714 Unable to write to tape. (TAPE=Full Backup 1, EC=UNRECOVERABLE DATA ERROR)
......
20040811 010157 TAPE E6096 Media Error [ABSL:4020 CMD:11h]
20040811 010226 TAPE E6096 Media Error [ABSL:4020 CMD:1h]

[Stalemate]

From that log, I would try to find the faulty tape and replace it with another.

[osprey1993]

From that log, I would try to find the faulty tape and replace it with another.

I have changed to new fresh tapes straight from the box many many times. And I have cleaned with fresh cleaning tapes many many times too.
But I remember setting the SNMP service on (on the Win NT server) about two weeks ago. Can't remember if it coincides with the time the backups started giving problems, but could it be a possibility?

[Linthade]

I have changed to new fresh tapes straight from the box many many times. And I have cleaned with fresh cleaning tapes many many times too.
But I remember setting the SNMP service on (on the Win NT server) about two weeks ago. Can't remember if it coincides with the time the backups started giving problems, but could it be a possibility?

Can you perform any other actions on the tape like a retension? Check to see if you can do anything else with the drive, like restores, formats etc.

*lin*