Veritas backup failing

I have a windows 2000 SP4 Server running Veritas Backup exec version 8.6 and it almost consistently fails at 13.4GB. The backup size is about 18.3GB. I am using 4mm tapes which hold 12GB uncompressed and 24GB compressed. When I bought the tapes they worked for a couple weeks and then they started failing. I have tried deleting and recreating the backup jobs and strategy, and tried retensioning the tapes before backing up. They have no overwrite protection and I have it set to retension and then overwrite the tape. Any ideas why this is happening and what I can do to get reliable backups daily at this size (about 20GB) to run automatically at night and run to the tape drive (an HP)?
Thanks much,
Johnny 5

 

Veritas creates a text file for each backup. Right click on the failed job status and select Properties and it will tell you the name of the txt file (something like BEX115.txt), then do a search for the file and it should tell you in there what went wrong.

 

Usually it is "cancelled by administrator ". what happens is...it just up and stops and asks for overwritable media at about 13GB through the job. And since the tapes are 12/24s, and I have compression turned on, it should actually back up the whole thing. But for some reason it kicks out the tape and I have to either cancel it or add another tape(?) but I am 100 miles away running it remotely, so that is not an option, without calling someone and having them put in a new tape. But it shouldnt need a new tape, sonce the job is smaller than the tape capacity. Also, I dont have it set to append, just to overwrite, and I have retension media set to run before it starts. To make it more confusing, for some reason out of the blue it actually worked one day last week, but I can not tell why....

 

Do you have a lot of compressed files to backup? Maybe a lot of jpg files? These types of files, since they are already compressed won't get much smaller. One of the backups I do on a daily basis is a total of about 14Gb. I use travan tapes that are 10/20 Gb capacity and I have to use 2 tapes because there are so many compressed files so I have the timer set to start recording at 7PM and when I come in the next morning I change tapes and let it finish the backup.

 

OK good point. So would that make the completed jobs show as 18GB, but the ones that fail at 13GB would actually be much larger? The data is the same for all jobs.

 

You got me there, have you tried contacting Veritas or at least checked their website for FAQ's or troubleshooting hints.

There should be a way to contact them either by phone or e-mail. Other than that I'm out of ideas. Sorry!