>Help! I am being plagued by a host of ANR8820Ws (Repairing VCR data for
>tapes on IBM 3590 drives).
>
>I hate these - the "repair" operation takes too long and doesn't always work
>(I've been waiting 10 minutes now for a repair to complete!).  And each
>incident seems to dump about four messages into the error log, claiming
>everything from the tape drive is broken (but the CEs say the drives pass
>all diagnostics) to that the drive is dirty (we clean each drive daily and
>our mount count isn't particularly high).

If the loss of VCR data recurs on your tapes (i.e, not being permanently
fixed), it is the effect of bad 3590 drive microcode.  (Your CEs should know
this.)  I'd suspect that you are quite downlevel, in that we haven't seen
recent reports otherwise from 3590 tape drive users.  Have your CE upgrade
your drive microcode.  Do not replace your tapes - they are innocent victims.

I went through the "lost VCR data" problem about a year ago when there was a
bad microcode version out there: upgrading it eliminated problem perpetuation,
and each tape re-use cured each tape thereafter.

(The VCR data is rebuilt when the tape is empty and is rewritten from its
beginning.  Or you can use the 'tapeutil' command option "Space to
End-of-Data".  Or you can check the tape out of the library, back in as
private, and then Audit it with FIX=No.)

    Richard Sims, BU