Postings from customers using 3590K tapes have, over the past months,
noted problems which most conspicuously turn up when trying to label
the tapes.  I had the same problem of I/O errors on several tapes
two months ago, in the labeling process.  I persisted in performing
the label operation on the problematic ones, and finally got them all
labeled.  Once labeled, no problems.

Today I received a fresh shipment of 3590K tapes (IBM part number 05H3188)
and labeled 70 of them.  Three exhibited labeling problems, on different
drives. I repeated the Label Libvolume on those three: two of them then
successful, one failed.  Repeated on the last tough one and it finally went
through.

Such is the current state of 3590K tape and drive harmony, at least at
this site.

    Richard Sims, BU