Last week on two separate Windows Server 2008 R2 servers on a clients site, both of them decided they would not correctly recognise the tape drives anymore. These servers had not been patched in a few months (due to the onsite IT Admin) and therefore there were a large number of patches installed. The problem showed up in Device Manager with the HP LTO Tape Drive having a yellow exclamation mark against it. If you drill down into the device itself it gave the error message below
Windows cannot start this hardware device because its configuration information (in the registry) is incomplete or damaged. (Code 19)
At first I attempted to remove and reinstall the device but that did not resolve the issue. I then removed the device, rebooted and let it scan the devices again – same problem – still not resolved.
In the end I did some digging with Google and found a similar case here where someone had issues with their CDROM drive playing up. I dug deeper to find the specific key that referred to the HP LTO Tape Drive and executed the same modifications.
To resolve the issue use this procedure;
- Run Regedit
- Navigate to this key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{6D807884-7D21-11CF-801C-08002BE10318}
- Do an export of this key for backup purposes.
- Delete the LowerFilters key and reboot the server – I didn’t have an UpperFilters key but would have removed that too if I had it.
Problem solved – the device is now recognised correctly and works just fine 
I’m still confused however as to how this issue came about and in particular why on two nearly identical servers did it occur at the same time. Keen to know if someone can explain this to me as I’m in the midst of creating a standard build for a client which will be used across 25 servers spread over 25 physical locations.
Wayne – I think this might be a semi-well known issue. When I had both optical drives quit on an XP box at the same time, several people pointed me to a KB with the same solution. There’s even a “FixIt” that does it for you with optical drives. Just searching on “UpperFilters” you find all kinds of hits for various types of hardware and different OSs.
The XP one is http://support.microsoft.com/kb/982116
Still not sure WHY it occured on the SAME day on two different servers..
You save my day 🙂 thank you very much to share this info.
Had the same problem on Windows Server 2008 R2 with an IBM LTO Tape drive. BackupExec job failed with error “Physical Volume Library Drive not available”. Device Manager showed the error with the drive (Code 19). After 8 hours of doing my own thing and calling Symantec, I ran across this article. I deleted the reg key and rebooted the server. Runs like a scolded dog now! Thanks!
Very good article, all I needed to know is here!
Superb, this article has everything in detail.
Nice article, it was able to explain the idea of the subject well.
Very nice read! Article was well written, covering important parts
of the subject.
Very good read, this article has most parts covered and
explained.
Had exactly the same problem – I checked with Microsoft and the “solution” was to uninstall and reinstall – did not work after a lot of frustration and hair pulling out (I haven’t got much left – now)and thinking that I would have to do a rebuild of the server – I came across this article – thank you!!! What a relief – followed the instructions and everything is now back as it should be – I can only say my most heartfelt thanks – Well Done – a lifesaver article – very much appreciated.
Thank you for save my life…
Thank you so much!
Thanks.
I ran into similar issue with dvd drives once but got hit on my tape drives this week. Your quick fix may have saved me from reinstall.
Here it is 5 1/2 years later and this article still fixing problems. Add me to the list of grateful readers. Fixed problem with HP DAT 160 SAS internal tape drive on Windows Server 2008 R2 in an HP Proliant ML370 G6 box. Thank you!
Thanks for the Help. information is very good.
It solve my problem which is running form last 7 days.
Thank you so much, you are the Man.
I find out the solution in Symantec/Veritas cannot solved.
The uninstall driver / re-install / BE driver is not work.
This happen on IBM Total Storage 3572 and 3580 Tape Drive.