Microsoft KB Archive/263480

= Backup runs very slow on IDE-based (ATAPI) tape drives and verification operations may not work =

Article ID: 263480

Article Last Modified on 3/1/2007

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APPLIES TO


 * Microsoft Windows 2000 Server
 * Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server
 * Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional Edition

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This article was previously published under Q263480



SYMPTOMS
When you perform a backup to an IDE-based (ATAPI) tape drive, the backup times are excessively long. A process that typically take minutes to complete, may take hours. During a tape verification operation, you may also receive a Plug and Play surprise removal error message against the tape drive, which causes the backup verification operation to not work.

The Plug and Play surprise error message may look similar to the following example:

Unsafe Removal of Device

You have unplugged or ejected a device without stopping it. Unplugging or ejecting devices without first stopping them can often cause your computer to crash and lose valuable data. To safely unplug or eject any of the following devices, first use the Hardware wizard in the Control Panel to stop the device.

Tape drive -or- CD-ROM drive.

If you frequently need to unplug this device, Windows can give you an icon on the taskbar to quickly unplug or eject your device. If you would like to use this option, check the following:

Show Unplug/Eject icon on the taskbar.



CAUSE
This behavior occurs because the tape drive is attached to an IDE channel that also contains a CD-ROM. When a CD-ROM is present, the Windows 2000 CD-ROM driver polls the CD-ROM drive every second looking for media changes. This is done to allow the Autorun feature to work.



RESOLUTION
To improve backup performance and eliminate possible Plug and Play surprise removal error messages, use one of the following workarounds:  Turn off the Autorun feature by using the steps in the following Microsoft Knowledge Base article:

155217 How to enable or disable the CD-ROM Autorun feature

 Move the tape drive or CD-ROM so that these two devices are located on separate IDE controllers. Purchase a SCSI-based tape drive and controller listed on the Windows 2000 Hardware Compatibility List (HCL) to enhance reliability and performance of your backups.



MORE INFORMATION
Because backup verification operations are read only, backup performs I/O requests to the tape drive more often and is the reason Plug and Play surprise removal error messages may be displayed when Autorun is enabled. This may result in Ntbackup reporting the following message during a verification operation in the Backup report:

Error: An inconsistency was encountered on the requested media.

Verify completed on 5/31/2000 at 5:22 AM.

Directories: xxx

Files: xxx

Different: 0

Bytes: xxx

Time: X minutes and Y seconds

After this error message is displayed, all additional verification operations are stopped, and the following error message is posted in the Application event log:

Event Type: Error

Event Source: NTBackup

Event Category: None

Event ID: 8009

Date: 5/31/2000

Time: 5:22:36 AM

User: N/A

Computer:

Description:

End Verify to 'C:'

Additional query words: CDROM Travan Qic157 W2000NTBackup pnp

Keywords: kberrmsg kbhardware kbprb KB263480

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