Remote Storage Service Hangs W2K Server

The server is a Win2K Sp2 .. usual domain controller type services backing up to a travan drive and NT Backup
If the backup is kicked off manually by double clicking the script it works fine. If the backup is kicked off by the task scheduler I get an error ” please add the travan to the free media pool” (not a verbatim quote) even though the tape is obviously there.
After investigating in Event Viewer there seems to be a problem with the Remote Storage Service hanging on startup … and thereseems to be a lot of instances of it starting .. but none of it stopping.
Does anyone have a solution to this problem other than rebuilding the server??

thanks

Jeff