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BackupAssist Backup Software > Knowledge Base > DLT

DLT Tape Drives

DLT tape drives are generally quite popular because of their storage capacity and they are priced competitively.

Some drives however have issues with BackupAssist. We believe it is due to a faulty or incomplete implmentation of the Windows drivers. DLT drive problems account for over 40% of all troubleshooting support issues, and along with Travan drives, appear to be the most troublesome.

Workaround for problems detecting the tape in the drive

Sometimes, DLT drives will not be able to perform an Inventory command, and therefore it will appear that the drive is empty.

This is an unfortunate problem - the drive does not respond to the Windows commands.

BackupAssist will therefore think that the drive is empty, and give an error message.

To disable BackupAssist's checking of the tape before each backup, do the following:

  1. Go to the Options tab in BackupAssist
  2. Click on Advanced Tape Drive Settings
  3. Uncheck the top two checkboxes
  4. Click OK to save these settings

Implementing this change will mean that the backup will run without BackupAssist checking for the tape. However, it also means that it is now not possible to perform an append operation to the tape. All backups must overwrite the tape in the drive.

Page last modified on January 30, 2005, at 11:36 PM