On Apr 3, 2006, at 1:09 PM, Frank Tsao, email is tsaof AT sce DOT com wrote:

I had an interesting situation: A volume in primary pool had a read
error.
I used q vol f=d and found the last date of data written is around
January. Since then, I had several good backup on this tape.
However, I
found on March 26, it had requested to make copy of this tape.
Since this
tape is in error condition, the copy failed.

Do I have good data on the copy tape?

How do TSM decide need to copy tape?

How reliable I can trust the last read or written date?

Use 'Query CONtent' with COPied=No on the primary volume to see if
any of it is missing in a copy storage pool.

You would do well to run periodic Select commands on the Volumes
table looking for read/write errors, and also turn on TapeAlert if
not already on.  Don't let problems build up over months.  There
might be a chronic drive problem or environmental contamination
jeopardizing more data than you think.

   Richard Sims