BACKUP Failed

Well, the other day I came in to an email that the backup had failed. Odd, been running just fine for months, wonder what's wrong. The event log just has an event id #5634. Usual backup failed event. When I looked at the backup log the message was:

Backup Runner started.NTMS session started successfully.
EnumerateNtmsObject(NTMS_LIBRARY) succeeded.
Will enumerate on 3 media libraries found.
GetNtmsObjectInformation(NtmsLibraryInfo) succeeded.
GetNtmsObjectInformation(NtmsLibraryInfo) succeeded.
Found an enabled library.
InventoryNtmsLibrary(NtmsInventoryOmid) succeeded.
Identify Media completedEnumerateNtmsObject(NTMS_MEDIA_TYPE) succeeded.
Will enumerate on 0 media types found.
GetNtmsObjectInformation(NtmsLibraryInfo) succeeded.
Found an enabled library.
InventoryNtmsLibrary(NtmsInventoryOmid) succeeded.
Identify Media failed or was invalid.
EnumerateNtmsObject(NTMS_MEDIA_TYPE) succeeded.
Will enumerate on 0 media types found.
Unable to detect tape drive or tape media.
GetTapeMediaPoolName failed.
(0x80070458)GetBackupDestination failed.
(0x80070458)LaunchNTBackup failed.
(0x80070458)NTBackup finished the backup with errors.

OK. NT Backup can't find the media. I then looked at the Media Pools in RSM. There were 5 allocated backups tapes in the "backup" folder. None were in the Free media folder. If I recall this is normal. I tried a manual backup and received a message:

"There is no free media available with the selected type. Add unused media or click cancel to end the operation. Note: it may take up to 60 seconds to recognize new media.

OK. Seems to me that there needs to be "Free" media available in the Free Media folder. Or at least it seems that way. So, found some trouble shooting articles on Tape Backup Media. OK, tried something else. I checked the "move mediat to free" box on the properties page of the "backup" media pool. I then manually deallocated the oldest Ecrix backup from the backup media pool. This moved the media to the free media pool with a state of "unlabled".

So now I have some free media available. Should work, right? NOT. OK now what's up? This morning I looked at the Queues folder in RSM. I see several "Clean Drive" messages. I clean my drive every month. The last clean cycle was run on Feb 8th. Why do I need to run it again. I recall a post where someone else had the same problem and cleaned the drive but I couldn't get past my brain telling me "but you just cleaned it", blah blah blah. OK, so I clean the drive and voila! Backups now work.

Glad it was an easy fix. NOW, It would be very helpful if Microsoft could add the "Tape Clean" message to the backup log. If this message was appended to the log the user would know right off that the drive needs to be cleaned before any further backups can be run.

Best,
Bill V
SBS ROCKS!