"Unable to initilize ASPI manager" on backup failure.

 Though I would start here at Dell first.

 

Has anyone out there encountered similar problems?

 

We are running SAP on Dell PE 4600 servers running Win 2K Advanced server using the internal  PV 110T SDLT 320 tape drives.  SAP includes backup support built into the application for backing up the database.  This support is bacically a wrapper to Windows backup.  One of my servers has been reporting occasional failures with the following error block::

 

BR0278E Command output of 'dd =32k conv=sync if=G:\ORACLE\L03\SAPDATA1\BTABD_10\BTABD.DATA10 of=/dev/nmt0':   
dd: unable to initialize ASPI manager                                                                           
dd: using NT tape support                                                                                       
dd: Data error (cyclic redundancy check).                                                                       
dd: write error: Data error (cyclic redundancy check).                                                          
28434+0 records in                                                                                              
28433+0 records out                                                                                             
1 write error                                                                                                   
dd: Data error (cyclic redundancy check).                                                                       
BR0280I BRBACKUP time stamp: 2007-01-17 19.08.42                                                                
BR0279E Return code from 'dd =32k conv=sync if=G:\ORACLE\L03\SAPDATA1\BTABD_10\BTABD.DATA10 of=/dev/nmt0': 1  
BR0222E Copying G:\ORACLE\L03\SAPDATA1\BTABD_10\BTABD.DATA10 to/from /dev/nmt0 failed due to previous errors    

Last week the tape drive died and we had it replaced and though we were on easy street until today, when the error returned.  We also have a PowerVault 136T and on occasion we will get an error that matches this.  Not the same text but the same basic errors;  ASPI Manager, write error and CRC errors.  The internal tape drives seem to suffer this more than the PV 136T.

 

I am out of ideas on this.  We have 4 PE 4600's in the system with tape drives, some seem to be fine while other eat the tape drives for lunch.  I keep up with the latest firmware and drivers but that doesn't seem to be the issue.  The occurance of this is almost random.  If we get a tape that has any kind of write errors back to back we remove the tape from service, but there are time when the same tape fails but the failures are months apart.

 

Thanks for any help on this.