Tape Backup gone awry

Jeff Mottle · October 28th, 2002

Hey guys I've got an HP tape backup drive 24GB DAT and it seems to have gotten a mind of its own. For some reason it will accept tapes then forgets its there and won't recognize it for backups and won't even let me eject it without powering down the syetem. It's not a heat issue as the drive case is cold to touch even when the system has been on for several days. Does anyone have any ideas what might be up? It was suggested that it could be the built in W2K version of Backup so I tried the demo of Vertitas' Backup Exec, but I have the same problem. I am going to migrate to an external USB2 120GB HD solution, but I would still like to get my tape backup working for my weekly offsite rotations.

Greg Hess · October 28th, 2002

Was an instance of a Tape drive at work head's being misaligned. The drive would still work, and still record data, but it had the weirdest stuff happen to it. Eventually the alignment got so far off that the tape drive had to be replaced....

Unfortuantly the new drive could not read ANY of the old tapes. Because the drive heads on the previous drive were not aligned correctly, the new drive's heads would not align with the recorded data, making all previous backups a waste.

Moral of the story? Backup all the tapes onto something else quick

.

They've switched to a RAID 5 array with DVD's and external drives as secondary backup mediums. (Of course data sets are still in the 1-3 gig range and haven't gotten rediculous yet.)

Jeff Mottle · October 28th, 2002

Thanks Greg. I'm just about to order an external 120GB HD now so I can at least get a mirror and I'll deal with a offsite solution therefter. I'm going to run th HP diagnotic tools tonight. The drive is aalmost new so should not be failing yet. Arggg.

Until then everybody think happy thoughts about Jeff's data. If I lose the data, I will be in a world of hurt. Like shut CGA down kind of hurt. Not a good situation.

ingo · October 28th, 2002

When i remember this correct the HP drives cant read/write to every DAT tape. I remember when i worked at an architectural office we had the same problem. Some tapes wont work with the drive, and mostly you realize it when its too late.

HTH

ingo

Jeff Mottle · October 28th, 2002

Hmmm, it worked on all of my tapes for several months, now kaput... I should dig out some other tapes as well to test. What solution did you end up going with after that?

Quote:

Originally posted by ingo:
When i remember this correct the HP drives cant read/write to every DAT tape. I remember when i worked at an architectural office we had the same problem. Some tapes wont work with the drive, and mostly you realize it when its too late.

HTH

ingo

ingo · October 28th, 2002

Well, we just used the tapes the dealer recommended. We lost some data but that wasn't a big problem. The DAT tape was only a short time backup, we burn the finished projects with all CAD files and picts onto CD.
I'm not sure how big your office is, but for a oneman office like mine i use magneto-optical solutions like MO-drives or in my case a DVD-RAM. But that depends on the amount of files you have to backup and how often you do backups.

ingo

Jeff Mottle · October 28th, 2002

Thanks ingo,

I do daily incremental and weekly full backups. I'm a one man show and have about 30GB that gets bakup during the weekly full backups.

plastic · October 28th, 2002

check out this external hd:
http://www.maxtor.com/en/documentati...data_sheet.pdf

it has a firewire AND usb2 AND usb1 interface, so you can really plug it everywhere.

i also had many problems with tapes. i spread backups on the local network now, automated xcopy's. so if the server dies, i can quickly map the networkdrives to another workstation.

nisus · October 28th, 2002

We use HD's in removable slots, which is basicly a cheap alternative imho.

rgds

nisus

bigcahunak · October 28th, 2002

Kinda having the same problem with an HP 12Gb tape. It worked perfectlly, untill about a month ago. Sometimes it likes the cassette and sometimes not - same cassette. The other cassette works fine al the time, so I guess its this one cassette.

October 28th, 2002	#1 (permalink)
Jeff Mottle President/Founder Join Date: Jul 2001 Location: Calgary, Alberta, Canada Age: 33 Posts: 5,168 Name: Jeff Mottle	Hey guys I've got an HP tape backup drive 24GB DAT and it seems to have gotten a mind of its own. For some reason it will accept tapes then forgets its there and won't recognize it for backups and won't even let me eject it without powering down the syetem. It's not a heat issue as the drive case is cold to touch even when the system has been on for several days. Does anyone have any ideas what might be up? It was suggested that it could be the built in W2K version of Backup so I tried the demo of Vertitas' Backup Exec, but I have the same problem. I am going to migrate to an external USB2 120GB HD solution, but I would still like to get my tape backup working for my weekly offsite rotations. __________________ Jeff Mottle CGarchitect.com

October 28th, 2002	#3 (permalink)
Jeff Mottle President/Founder Join Date: Jul 2001 Location: Calgary, Alberta, Canada Age: 33 Posts: 5,168 Name: Jeff Mottle	Thanks Greg. I'm just about to order an external 120GB HD now so I can at least get a mirror and I'll deal with a offsite solution therefter. I'm going to run th HP diagnotic tools tonight. The drive is aalmost new so should not be failing yet. Arggg. Until then everybody think happy thoughts about Jeff's data. If I lose the data, I will be in a world of hurt. Like shut CGA down kind of hurt. Not a good situation. __________________ Jeff Mottle CGarchitect.com

October 28th, 2002	#4 (permalink)
ingo Veteran Member Join Date: Sep 2002 Location: Hamburg, mostly harmless Posts: 642 Name: ingo M	When i remember this correct the HP drives cant read/write to every DAT tape. I remember when i worked at an architectural office we had the same problem. Some tapes wont work with the drive, and mostly you realize it when its too late. HTH ingo __________________ ingo *** www.im-graphics.com

October 28th, 2002	#6 (permalink)
ingo Veteran Member Join Date: Sep 2002 Location: Hamburg, mostly harmless Posts: 642 Name: ingo M	Well, we just used the tapes the dealer recommended. We lost some data but that wasn't a big problem. The DAT tape was only a short time backup, we burn the finished projects with all CAD files and picts onto CD. I'm not sure how big your office is, but for a oneman office like mine i use magneto-optical solutions like MO-drives or in my case a DVD-RAM. But that depends on the amount of files you have to backup and how often you do backups. ingo __________________ ingo *** www.im-graphics.com

October 28th, 2002	#7 (permalink)
Jeff Mottle President/Founder Join Date: Jul 2001 Location: Calgary, Alberta, Canada Age: 33 Posts: 5,168 Name: Jeff Mottle	Thanks ingo, I do daily incremental and weekly full backups. I'm a one man show and have about 30GB that gets bakup during the weekly full backups. __________________ Jeff Mottle CGarchitect.com

October 28th, 2002	#2 (permalink)
Greg Hess Veteran Member Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: University of Maryland Age: 30 Posts: 1,012 Name: Greg Hess	Was an instance of a Tape drive at work head's being misaligned. The drive would still work, and still record data, but it had the weirdest stuff happen to it. Eventually the alignment got so far off that the tape drive had to be replaced.... Unfortuantly the new drive could not read ANY of the old tapes. Because the drive heads on the previous drive were not aligned correctly, the new drive's heads would not align with the recorded data, making all previous backups a waste. Moral of the story? Backup all the tapes onto something else quick . They've switched to a RAID 5 array with DVD's and external drives as secondary backup mediums. (Of course data sets are still in the 1-3 gig range and haven't gotten rediculous yet.)

October 28th, 2002	#8 (permalink)
plastic Senior Member Join Date: May 2002 Location: vienna, EU Posts: 314 Name: Marc Lorenz	check out this external hd: http://www.maxtor.com/en/documentati...data_sheet.pdf it has a firewire AND usb2 AND usb1 interface, so you can really plug it everywhere. i also had many problems with tapes. i spread backups on the local network now, automated xcopy's. so if the server dies, i can quickly map the networkdrives to another workstation. __________________ Marc Lorenz http://plugins.angstraum.at My 3d gallery at Flickr

October 28th, 2002	#9 (permalink)
nisus Super Moderator Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Gent Flanders Belgium Europe Age: 33 Posts: 3,277 Name: Evert Vandenberghe	We use HD's in removable slots, which is basicly a cheap alternative imho. rgds nisus __________________ www.ams.be / www.nisusarts.com http://www.youtube.com/profile_videos?user=nisusCGA&p=r

October 28th, 2002	#10 (permalink)
bigcahunak Veteran Member Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Israel Age: 37 Posts: 820 Name: Itzik Kelner	Kinda having the same problem with an HP 12Gb tape. It worked perfectlly, untill about a month ago. Sometimes it likes the cassette and sometimes not - same cassette. The other cassette works fine al the time, so I guess its this one cassette.

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