Just for the archives, evidently the inability to write a filemark
is a known failure mode on the AIT-3 drives (affecting about 1% of
the drives, according to the library support folks).  However, the
really bizarre thing is that it can be fixed with a firmware
update that can be installed via a utility downloadable from the
Sony web site.

Frank

Frank Smith wrote:
> Just trying to verify that I'm having an actual hardware error.
> Backups on one tape server (that's been in use for years) failed with
> the following:
> taper: tape archive03 kb 0 fm 0 writing filemark: Input/output error
> taper: retrying q42:/d5/backups/oracle/Dmp.0 on new tape: [writing filemark: 
> Input/output error]
> taper: tape archive04 kb 1796480 fm 1 writing file: Input/output error
> 
> and everything remained on the holdingingdisk.  From using dd I can
> see that Amanda is successfully updating the date in the header block.
> I can successfully run amlabel on the tapes, and I can use tar to
> write and read a tar file to/from the tape.  However, 'mt eof' fails,
> and gives the same error in the system logs as when Amanda runs:
> 
> kernel: st1: Error with sense data: <6>st1: Current: sense key: Medium Error
> kernel:     Additional sense: Write error
> kernel: Info fld=0x1
> 
> Is it definitely a drive failure when data can be written but not
> EOF marks, or is there something else I should check before replacing
> the drive?
> 
> Thanks,
> Frank
> 


-- 
Frank Smith                                      fsmith AT hoovers DOT com
Sr. Systems Administrator                       Voice: 512-374-4673
Hoover's Online                                   Fax: 512-374-4501