When there are fewer physical devices actually available, Symantec Device Driver Installers (tapeinst.exe) hardware scan lists multiple instances of tape devices which are available for the driver install. While in Windows Device Manager too the devices information is correct and it also appears to list only the actual devices. See Figure 1.

Figure 1

 

The Windows Device Manager may see all configured devices; which gives a false sense that the operating system sees all devices correctly. Unfortunately this is only static information that is discovered at boot up. Devices that show in Device Manager when they aren't physically available are called as "Ghost or Phantom Devices".

How To Resolve This Issue
To see what devices the operating system has, communication with it will be necessary to turn on Show hidden devices. To identify and remove the ghost devices from the Windows Device Manager:

1. From the command prompt on the problem server, run:

C:\>set devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices=1

C:\>start devmgmt.msc

2. Then, click View from the drop down and select to Show hidden devices.
3. Ghost devices show up with ghosted icons as shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2

 


4. Uninstall each ghost device(s) under Tape drives and Medium changers by right clicking the ghost device and selecting Uninstall.
5. Once all the ghost devices are uninstalled then reboot the server.
6. Re-run the Device Configuration Wizard to install the tape drivers and reboot if required.


NOTE: Simply selecting to "Show hidden devices" never works, it is recommended running the above command line arguments for Device Manager to show the "Ghost View". Do this every time before opening the Device Manager.

After performing the above procedures the Symantec Device Driver Installer (tapeinst.exe) will be able to install the required set of device drivers without stalling. See figure 3.


Figure 3