Dear List-Members

A setup which was working perfectly until the last backup cycle is giving me a 
headache.

I have Amanda running on FreeBSD 4.8. The Tapedrive is an Exabyte Mammoth DLT 
15/30
and the SCSI-Controller is an Adaptec AHA-2970.

The Amanda-Report looks as following:
*----------->8------------------------------
The dumps were flushed to tape VOL02.
*** A TAPE ERROR OCCURRED: [[writing filemark: Input/output error]].
Some dumps may have been left in the holding disk.
Run amflush again to flush them to tape.
The next tape Amanda expects to use is: VOL03.

FAILURE AND STRANGE DUMP SUMMARY:
  web2       / lev 1 FAILED [out of tape]


STATISTICS:
                          Total       Full      Daily
                        --------   --------   --------
Estimate Time (hrs:min)    0:00
Run Time (hrs:min)         0:01
Dump Time (hrs:min)        0:00       0:00       0:00
Output Size (meg)           0.0        0.0        0.0
Original Size (meg)         0.0        0.0        0.0
Avg Compressed Size (%)     --         --         -- 
Filesystems Dumped            0          0          0
Avg Dump Rate (k/s)         --         --         -- 

Tape Time (hrs:min)        0:00       0:00       0:00
Tape Size (meg)             0.0        0.0        0.0
Tape Used (%)               0.0        0.0        0.0
Filesystems Taped             0          0          0
Avg Tp Write Rate (k/s)     --         --         -- 


NOTES:
  taper: tape VOL02 kb 0 fm 0 writing filemark: Input/output error


DUMP SUMMARY:
                                     DUMPER STATS            TAPER STATS 
HOSTNAME     DISK        L ORIG-KB OUT-KB COMP% MMM:SS  KB/s MMM:SS  KB/s
-------------------------- --------------------------------- ------------
mailtwo      /             NO FILE TO FLUSH -----------------------------
mailtwo      /usr          NO FILE TO FLUSH -----------------------------
mailtwo      /var          NO FILE TO FLUSH -----------------------------
web1         /             NO FILE TO FLUSH -----------------------------
web1         /usr          NO FILE TO FLUSH -----------------------------
web1         /var          NO FILE TO FLUSH -----------------------------
web2         /           1     N/A      0   --    N/A   N/A   FAILED  ----
web2         /usr          NO FILE TO FLUSH -----------------------------
web2         /var          NO FILE TO FLUSH -----------------------------
*-----------------8<-----------------------------


Also, in /var/log/messages I see the following errormessage:

*---------------------8<-------------------------------
Aug 11 15:15:25 mailtwo /kernel: (sa0:ahc0:0:0:0): WRITE FILEMARKS. CDB: 10 0 0 
0 1 0
Aug 11 15:15:25 mailtwo /kernel: (sa0:ahc0:0:0:0): MEDIUM ERROR info:1 asc:3,2
Aug 11 15:15:25 mailtwo /kernel: (sa0:ahc0:0:0:0): Excessive write errors
Aug 11 15:15:25 mailtwo /kernel: (sa0:ahc0:0:0:0): WRITE FILEMARKS. CDB: 10 0 0 
0 2 0
Aug 11 15:15:25 mailtwo /kernel: (sa0:ahc0:0:0:0): MEDIUM ERROR info:1 asc:3,2
Aug 11 15:15:25 mailtwo /kernel: (sa0:ahc0:0:0:0): Excessive write errors
Aug 11 15:15:25 mailtwo /kernel: (sa0:ahc0:0:0:0): failed to write terminating 
filemark(s)
Aug 11 15:15:25 mailtwo /kernel: (sa0:ahc0:0:0:0): tape is now frozen- use an 
OFFLINE, REWIND or MTEOM command to clear th
is state.
*----------------->8---------------------------

I suppose this is a fault with the hardware? The errors occured with different 
tapes
from the tapecycle so I believe it's the tape-drive.

Any hints or opinions from the gurus on this would be greatly appreciated. =:-)

CU, Martin