Good morning,

I have just taken over the position of backup operator in my department, so please forgive any seemingly obvious questions. I have received several puzzling errors in the past few days, and hope I can get some answers as to what is causing them. First, this is the setup I am using:

We have a Dell PowerEdge 2950 as our backup server, using BackupExec 11d (Media Server version 11.0, Rev. 7170) - installed updates Service Pack 4, Hot Fixes 62, 63, 64, 65.

Our current configuration is to run a full backup of our main disk array/fileserver on Friday, at 11:00PM. Then, a differential backup will run on M, T, W, Th at 11:00PM. I first noticed a problem when I came in on Saturday and found the following error after the full backup job had 'finished':

Job ended: Saturday, August 01, 2009 at 12:28:00 PM
Completed status: Failed
Final error: 0xe00084ec - A tape read/write error has occurred. This is usually caused by dirty read/write heads in the tape drive. Clean the tape drive, and then try the job again. If the problem persists, try a different tape. You may also need to check for problems with cables, termination, or other hardware issues.
Final error category: Backup Media Errors

For additional information regarding this error refer to link V-79-57344-34028

Backup- \\192.168.0.152\M: LRDCVOLStorage device "Drive 1" reported an error on a request to write data to media.
Error reported:
A tape read/write error has occurred. This is usually caused by dirty read/write heads in the tape drive. Clean the tape drive, and then try the job again. If the problem persists, try a different tape. You may also need to check for problems with cables, termination, or other hardware issues.
V-79-57344-34028 - A tape read/write error has occurred. This is usually caused by dirty read/write heads in the tape drive. Clean the tape drive, and then try the job again. If the problem persists, try a different tape. You may also need to check for problems with cables, termination, or other hardware issues.

Having seen this, I immediately ran the cleaning job. Normally we schedule a cleaning job once a month, and it was due to run in 6 more days anyway. I ran the cleaning job at 1:08PM on Saturday. When I arrived at work Monday morning, BackupExec told me that the cleaning job ran normally and completed. However, I found the following three errors in Windows Event Viewer on the backup server, in the Application log:

Error #1)
Date: 8/1/2009
Time: 1:16:58PM
Type: Warning
User: N/A
Computer: BackupServer
Source: Backup Exec
Category: Devices
Event ID: 33152

Adamm Mover Error: Unload Status Retry!
Error = ERROR_NOT_READY
Drive = "Drive 1"
{A2B872F4-4681-4D45-B6BB-4FDE132C962E}
Media = ""
{00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000}
Read Mode: SingleBlock(0), ScsiPass(0)
Write Mode: SingleBlock(1), ScsiPass(1)

Error #2)
Date: 8/1/2009
Time: 1:17:13PM
Type: Warning
User: N/A
Computer: BackupServer
Source: BackupExec
Category: Devices
Event ID: 33152

Adamm Mover Error: Unload Status Retry!
Error = ERROR_NOT_READY
Drive = "Drive 1"
{A2B872F4-4681-4D45-B6BB-4FDE132C962E}
Media = ""
{00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000}
Read Mode: SingleBlock(0), ScsiPass(0)
Write Mode: SingleBlock(1), ScsiPass(1)

Error #3)
Date: 8/1/2009
Time: 1:17:28PM
Type: Error
User: N/A
Computer: BackupServer
Source: BackupExec
Category: Devices
Event ID: 33152

Adamm Mover Error: Unload Status Failure!
Error = ERROR_NOT_READY
Drive = "Drive 1"
{A2B872F4-4681-4D45-B6BB-4FDE132C962E}
Media = ""
{00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000}
Read Mode: SingleBlock(0), ScsiPass(0)
Write Mode: SingleBlock(1), ScsiPass(1)

I ran a second cleaning job on the same autoloader, at 8:41 Monday morning. Three identical errors appeared again in Event Viewer. I have checked back through the event logs and it seems to happen consistently when the cleaning jobs run. By comparison, I have had successfull differential and full backups run (even one last night) and this error does not occur.

What exactly is behind this? Is there a particular issue I need to address? The tape should not be attempting to unload, as we have defined the last slot in the autoloader's magazine as a cleaning slot and the cleaning tape is left in there.

I have already posted on Symantec's forum and got nothing, they told me to call their pay support line (and that's not really an option right now.)