Hi!

I'm using amanda 2.4.4p1 in combination with a Quantum SDLT 320
tape drive. This week I received some replacement tapes for broken
ones. 

Using the first tape I got some kind of "short write" while using
amflush:
[...]
*** A TAPE ERROR OCCURRED: [[writing file: Input/output error]].
[...]
  xxx       /home lev 6 FAILED [out of tape]
[...]
  taper: tape yyy3 kb 5972448 fm 14 writing file: Input/output error

The system wrote about 3 GB on a 160/320 GB tape. The amflush succeeded
with one of the older tapes (I flushed the data to the next tape yyy4).

Before having this problems again, how can I test a tape before use?
I thought about a second config doing full-backups and using amverify
to check the tape after the backup. But that's not using the complete
tape, so there could be an error near the end of the tape an I wouldn't
recognize.

Is there a test tool available running under linux/unix? Would be nice
if one could have a kind of report to print (tape error at position
xxx GB or something) for warranty reasons. 

My second problem is how to handle the "short write"?
I have to send in the tape, but the are 3-4 GB of data on this tape.
Without this data, my backup is inconsistent. The only possibility
I see (at the moment) is doing a full backup of the partitions having
some data on this tape.

Regards,
Martin Öhler