On Sunday 23 November 2003 04:28, Martin Oehler wrote:
>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

There is amtapetype, which will destructively write the tape till it 
hits EOT, and will tell you the size it found.  See the man page for 
running options to help speed it up as its quite slow, doing 2 
passes.

-- 
Cheers, Gene
AMD K6-III@500mhz 320M
Athlon1600XP@1400mhz  512M
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Copyright 2003 by Maurice Eugene Heskett, all rights reserved.