I wrote at 13 Dec 1999:

>since a couple of weeks we get accessive I/O errors on our 3590E drives and
>as a result many 'read-only' tapes.
>And since a week or so also "Data storage transaction 'blablabla' was
>aborted.", i.e. our backup's failed more often and often (lack of empty/
>writable tapes or backup's just fade away...)
>And btw, it happens on all our drives and with all king of tapes (i.e. old
>or brand new).

IBM discovered that we had two 'old Wide SCSI I/O Controller Adapter's'
which had to be replaced immediatly and that the microcode on the 3590E1A drives
needed to be upgraded too. After 12 hours, one of the new Wide SCSI I/O
Controller Adapter's gave the same problems as mentioned above.
After a couple of days IBM find out that the microcode on that adapter
wasn't the same as on the one that still worked (ROS Level and ID 75 in stead
off 77).
Since a couple of days all the problems seems to be passed away.

If you get the same problems, check all the microcode's: you need at least
ROS Level and ID 77 on the Wide SCSI I/O Controller Adapter's, and
at least D0IC_966 on your 3590E1A drives (check with 'lscfv -v').

And btw, I'm talking about AIX 4.2.1.0, Atape.driver 4.4.0.0, atldd.driver
4.0.1.0, 3494 taperobot and ADSM-server 3.1.2.40.

Cheers,
Henk ten Have (we still have more then 300 READ-ONLY tapes, but 2000 is
               far away... :)