On Wed, Jun 28, 2006 at 02:23:33PM -0400, Richard Sims wrote:

> You might experiment with one of your drives, boosting it to the
> latest microcode level (if not already there) and see if amelioration
> occurs.

Back in 2005 we also had problems with our IBM LTO2 drives in a 3584
library. In the end we found out that these were all microcode-related.
After upgrading to a fixed microcode level, we still kept seeing
problems with some tapes. What happened was that the chip in the
cartridge contained 'bad' information (due to the drive microcode
problems earlier on) and this causes weird behaviour (TapeAlerts)
even after we installed correct microcode. The fix for this was to
use 'Space to End of Data' in tapeutil: this apparently clears or
reinitializes the chip in the tapes.

(Even now, we sometimes get a TapeAlert "This tape is not data-grade"
on a rarely used volume.)
--
Jurjen Oskam

Savage's Law of Expediency:
        You want it bad, you'll get it bad.