We recently implemented new HP Ultrium 448 stand-alone tape drives for use in our backup solution for SQLServer 2000 on Windows 2000 Advanced Server. The Ultrium 448 is slated to soon replace the Ultrium 460 (which we had deployed in our environment) so we thought we would be pro-active and deploy the new drives before the old drives reached end of life. Immediately upon installation we started getting the following errors while trying to access these drives using SQLServer:
- “BackupMedium::ReportIoError: write failure on backup device '\\.\Tape0'. Operating system error 1117(The request could not be performed because of an I/O device error.).”
“Executed as user: SAPDOM\SQLServer. Write on 'Tape1' failed, status = 1117. See the SQL Server error log for more details. [SQLSTATE 42000] (Error 3202) BACKUP DATABASE is terminating abnormally. [SQLSTATE 42000] (Error 3013). The step failed.”
The same drives, however, were operating just fine using Symantec BackupExec software.
To make a long story short, it turns out that the Ultrium 448 drives will run using any drivers provided by HP for the Ultrium2 family, but in order for SQLServer to recognize them they must be running with the HP Ultrium 2 drivers dated 03/02/2007 or later, and the driver installation must be followed by a system reboot (whether it prompts you to or not.)
The moral of the story: When replacing a tape device, test all products that will be accessing that device before deploying it, and figure in some downtime for reboots.
I hope this saves some of you headaches in the future.
