Network newbie requiring urgent help

[osprey]

Hello everyone,

My question is a bit hardware-ish.

I am running a Windows NT Server 4.0, with Arcserve 6.0 for NT as my backup software, using a Sony TSL 9000 8-tape Autoloader as my tape device.
Backups went well until about two weeks ago when almost every backup job (both incremental AND full) would either "fail" or get "cancelled". I would get all sorts of error codes, namely E6096, E3714.
Not only that, the backup transfer rate had gone down from 60-70MB/min normally, to about 10-15MB/min (it went as low as 2MB/min today!). It would back up only a few GBs of data then churn up these error codes,then cancel the jobs.
I rebooted the server, it didn't solve anything. I rebooted the tape drive, still no improvement.

I looked through Computer Associates' (vendors for Arcserve) online help, but suffice to say, that was as good as watching my clothes hang dry.

Almost lost, I contacted CA. They looked at my backup log and gave me a one sentence assistance;
"I think you need to fix the device problems." (some help, yah?)

Now doubly lost, I need some help in trying to pinpoint exactly what are the devices that I need to 'fix'. I think my server setup is pretty simple with one NT server holding a few drives of data, connected to the tape drive.

I am very new at the whole network thing, but this issue needs to be resolved as data backup is of utmost importance for my office. I am still in the process of learning, so please kindly offer some help.

I attached below part of the log that stated the more common errors in my backups.

20040810 123844 TAPE E8020 Failed to inventory slot(s) (EC=BAD TAPE)[Device:5][SONY ]
20040810 135707 TAPE E8003 Tape manually ejected from Drive [4], in changer [Device:5][SONY ]
20040810 135707 TAPE Successfully dismounted magazine:0 [Device:5][SONY ]
20040810 140439 TAPE E8020 Failed to inventory slot(s) (EC=BAD TAPE)[Device:5][SONY ]
20040810 140439 TAPE E8023 Failed to mount magazine:0 (EC=BAD TAPE)[Device:5][SONY ]
20040810 140446 TAPE E8003 Tape manually ejected from Drive [4], in changer [Device:5][SONY ]
...
20040811 010155 TAPE E6096 Media Error [ABSL:4020 CMD:Ah]
20040811 010155 182 E3714 Unable to write to tape. (TAPE=Full Backup 1, EC=UNRECOVERABLE DATA ERROR)
......
20040811 010157 TAPE E6096 Media Error [ABSL:4020 CMD:11h]
20040811 010226 TAPE E6096 Media Error [ABSL:4020 CMD:1h]

[osprey]

I have changed to new fresh tapes straight from the box many many times. And I have cleaned with fresh cleaning tapes many many times too.
But I remember setting the SNMP service on about two weeks ago. Can't remember if it coincides with the time the backups started giving problems, but could it be a possibility?

[classicsoftware]

Try reversing the SNMP settings and see if the backup problem resolves.