I am doing this research for my mother in law, so I do not know every single detail. However, I can't figure it out on my own so I thought I would ask for some help. They have their PC set to auto backup every morning on zip disks. It takes two zip disks. It had been working fine for about a year. The past few weeks it has worked sometimes, and hasn't worked other times. When it ISN'T working it asks for a third disk (they usually only need two) and when they put the third disk in, it goes for about 8 seconds, and then closes down. In the log file it says it was "auto canceled" or something like that. They have tried using brand new media, and still get the same error.

However, when I went and tried it, it worked fine. They said sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Anyone have any ideas??

Here is the log file:
Start Jobs Report
________________________________________________________________

Job Name: Daily Data Backup

Backup Job Started - 3/6/2007 11:13:34AM
Backup Device: IOMEGA ZIP 750 Drive (D:)
Backup Device Firmware: 80.a
Backup Product: Stomp Backup MyPC 5.0 101B32a
Backup Type: Full - all selected files backed up will be marked as archived
Backup Media: Tuesday - 3/6/2007 11:13AM
A snapshot (shadow) copy of files that may be in use was made (Volumes: C:\).
Unattended Action: Default response 'Cancel' selected at: This media is part of the current backup and cannot be overwritten. Please insert another media to continue.
Operation Completed - No ( Cancelled )
Backup Job Ended - 3/6/2007 11:21:13AM

___________________________________________________________

Job Name: Daily Data Backup

Backup Job Started - 3/6/2007 11:28:53AM
Backup Device: IOMEGA ZIP 750 Drive (D:)
Backup Device Firmware: 80.a
Backup Product: Stomp Backup MyPC 5.0 101B32a
Backup Type: Full - all selected files backed up will be marked as archived
Backup Media: Tuesday backup - 3/6/2007 11:44AM
A snapshot (shadow) copy of files that may be in use was made (Volumes: C:\).
Error: C:\Data\2005 Obits\February 2005\Miller, Monroe D\obit.doc - not found
Unattended Action: Default response 'Cancel' selected at: Please insert another media to continue.
Operation Completed - No ( Cancelled )
Backup Job Ended - 3/6/2007 1:22:00PM

___________________________________________________________

Job Name: Daily Data Backup

Backup Job Started - 3/6/2007 3:44:49PM
Backup Device: IOMEGA ZIP 750 Drive (D:)
Backup Device Firmware: 80.a
Backup Product: Stomp Backup MyPC 5.0 101B32a
Backup Type: Full - all selected files backed up will be marked as archived
Backup Media: 30607 - 3/6/2007 3:45PM
A snapshot (shadow) copy of files that may be in use was made (Volumes: C:\).
Backup Media: 030707 - 3/6/2007 4:05PM
Unattended Action: Default response 'Cancel' selected at: This media is part of the current backup and cannot be overwritten. Please insert another media to continue.
Operation Completed - No ( Cancelled )
Backup Job Ended - 3/6/2007 4:13:01PM

___________________________________________________________

Job Name: Daily Data Backup

Backup Job Started - 3/7/2007 7:30:58AM
Backup Device: IOMEGA ZIP 750 Drive (D:)
Backup Device Firmware: 80.a
Backup Product: Stomp Backup MyPC 5.0 101B32a
Backup Type: Full - all selected files backed up will be marked as archived
Backup Media: Sunday backup - 3/6/2007 8:44AM
A snapshot (shadow) copy of files that may be in use was made (Volumes: C:\).
Backup Media: Friday backup - 3/6/2007 8:41AM
Processed File Count: 31,287
Total Bytes After Compression: 1,488,580,976
Total Bytes Before Compression: 1,720,363,820
Operation Completed - Yes
Backup Job Ended - 3/7/2007 8:32:29AM

___________________________________________________________

Job Name: Daily Data Backup

Backup Job Started - 3/7/2007 1:30:08PM
Backup Device: IOMEGA ZIP 750 Drive (D:)
Backup Device Firmware: 80.a
Backup Product: Stomp Backup MyPC 5.0 101B32a
Backup Type: Full - all selected files backed up will be marked as archived
Backup Media: Daily Data Backup 00033 - 3/7/2007 1:30PM
A snapshot (shadow) copy of files that may be in use was made (Volumes: C:\).
Backup Media: 030707 - 3/6/2007 4:05PM
Skipped File: Z:\March 2007\Yoder, Robert\obit Yoder.doc - in use by another application, it will be skipped.
Unattended Action: Default response 'Cancel' selected at: This media is part of the current backup and cannot be overwritten. Please insert another media to continue.
Operation Completed - No ( Cancelled )
Backup Job Ended - 3/7/2007 1:59:30PM

________________________________________________________________

End Jobs Report

From the error logs, I would say that something changed on the hard drive they are backing up. A file that was there at the start is not there when it was time to actually back it up. The setting they have during thebackup for this error is cancel the job. That needs to be changed to one of the other options, probably continue. Not sure of the options as I am not at my home PC right now to look it up.

Thanks for the idea, I'll see if I can fix it that way.

As someone with a pair of defunct Iomega drives gathering dust, have you heard a 'clicking' noise coming from it? If so, it could be on its way out (that has been nicknamed COD - Click of Death) and is a well known problem with the zip drives

Hey! I still use those defunct zip drives. And the COD was a problem with the external SCSI zip drives. They were a pretty color blue. LOL. I have one in a drawer somewhere, and mine never died.

The ones I use now are ATAPI.

Mine weren't SCSI - they ran off the parallel port and they are totally dfefunct, dead, toes curled up and click of deathed