Hello everybody,

We use Microsoft Back-up to back-up our Windows Server 2003 SBS. All the servers are configured identically so that administrating the machines is relative easy. Now I received a DDS5 tape from a client wich I like to restore some datafrom onto another Windows Server 2003 SBS. Just the hardware is different. But the platform is running well. Clean install. Same Server name and same Domain name. We use the dutch versions of Windows Server so it is not easy to give you all the exact message I receive. But I try to make it clear the best way possible... Restoring on the new machine is just not possible. When I try to catalogue the tape it just ejects after about 45 seconds. It tells me;"catalogueing the tape is not possible because the device is busy. Wait till the device becomes available." I can do what I want but the tape is not accessible. The same tape in the original server just works perfect! All I try to do is restoring some Word documents from tape... Can somebody help me with this issue? I am starting to become desperate due all the problems I have with MS backup! Is this tool the right tool anyway? What do you think? For the dutch speaking people here's the dutch message I get from MS-Backup;"De media wisselaar kan het medium nu niet laden omdat het station in gebruik is. Wacht totdat het station beschikbaar wordt. U kunt dit verzoek elk moment annuleren."

Thanks in advance,
Herman Franssen

I have had issues in the past with tape devices and the Windows Backup and Restore Utility (NTBackup.exe) where after a backup is complete, the NTBackup.exe process doesn't shut down and so it continues to tie up the tape drive.  So you may have succesfully done a backup on one tape but when you insert another tape and try to read it, the system thinks the tape drive is still engaged reading or writing the previous tape.

Check out the Task Manager and see if you have an instance of the NTBackup.exe process running, even when you're not actually doing anything with the tape drive.  If so, select the that process in Task Manager and kill it.  Sometimes you can't kill the process in Task Manager so you may have to use something like the Kill utility or a tool like Process Explorer to kill it.

If all else fails and you can't kill NTBackup.exe, reboot the server and then after your server is back on line, insert your tape and try to read it. 

I had a similiar problem with Exrix drives I updated the firmware on the tape drives and my problems went away.  Give it a shot and see what happens.