Backup Tape errors in another drive

[DebiJo]

Production has an Autoloader with a Single LTO-2 drive.
Test has a Single LTO-2 drive.
Production & test are on same OS - AIX 5.1.
I create my backup tapes with mkvgback.

Production can restore tapes made from production.
Test can restore tapes made from test.

I try to put Production's tape in Test's drive and do a list backup contents.
I see it list all the LV's and files, but then it errors:
sbread: Invalid status record type
Tape control error on /dev/rmt1.1
I/O error

Any ideas?
Thanks in advance,
Debi

 

[alexhu]

How many production tapes have you tried in the test drive?

Its either

media

or

one of the drives being out of spec (but you knew that didn't you? )

Alex

 

[DebiJo]

I've tried 4 created from 4 different days. What's throwing me is that it can see the files, directories, etc with the tape in the other drive. It only fails at the very end.

Thanks,
Debi

 

[KenCunningham]

Have you (or can you) try a proper restore rather than a listing? It's possible that something about the autoloader adds something at the end of the save that the stand-alone doesn't recognise.

 

[DebiJo]

Yes, I have tried that too. I'm going to try a small one today. Just write a few files and see what happens.

Thanks,
Debi

 

[DebiJo]

I did a backup of a few files onto a single tape on production. I put the tape in the test server and do a list contents and get this:
* --------------------------- *
* Please insert volume 2. Restore will continue *
* automatically when new tape has been inserted. *
******************************************************
But there was only one tape.....
Any ideas?
Thanks again,
Debi

 

[KenCunningham]

Debi - I take it you did make sure the tape was rewound before trying the restore?

 

[DebiJo]

Yes. It is rewound.
Thanks for trying, I'm still stumped.

Debi

 

[alexhu]

It might help if you show us the command(s) you are using and the error message(s) as they appear

Alex

 

[KenCunningham]

Alex is right, but it does look to me as though some sort of header is being written to the tape by the autoloader.

 

[mrn]

try mt -f /dev/rmt0n fsf 1

before the restore

if this fails try using dd to extract the tape

Mike

"A foolproof method for sculpting an elephant: first, get a huge block of marble, then you chip away everything that doesn't look like an elephant."

http://www.airport-parking-site.co.uk/

 

[DebiJo]

I am using smit for the restore. It sits there for a while and then does this:
* --------------------------- *
* Please insert volume 2. Restore will continue *
* automatically when new tape has been inserted. *
******************************************************

Is there somewhere I can see more info?

Thanks,
Debi

 

[KenCunningham]

You say 'it sits there for a while'. Is there any activity evident on the drive lights? Are any files restored? You should be able to see the command being run from smit.log. You probably need to do a verbose restore to see files as they are accessed on tape. Sorry if this isn't much more help at this stage.

 

[DukeSSD]

Is the device driver (ATAPE) up to date and the same version on both machines ?

 

[DebiJo]

I believe I have answered all questions below... (I am still having issues)

***
The restore does not restore any files. When I go to the restore SMIT it says sequence 1 (it is the only sequence on the tape), I press enter. The lights blink for a few minutes, then the tape ejects. I hit CTRL-c after that and it says end of media reached... insert tape 2... But again, there was no tape 2.

***
The restore after the mt command resulted with the same thing - asking for tape 2.

***
The dd command (I've never used it before, so my syntax might be lacking)
lawtmp/debi>dd if=/dev/rmt1 of=outfile1 bs=32k conv=sync
dd: 0511-051 The read failed.
: There is an input or output error.
4+0 records in.
4+0 records out.
lawtmp/debi>ls -l
total 512
-rw-r--r-- 1 root sys 131072 Jul 26 11:22 outfile

The outfile lists all the files on the tape.

***
There is a Atape.driver on production, but I do not have one loaded on the test box. But the test box backups work okay. So, is the Atape used?

Thanks again for all your input.
Debi

 

[DukeSSD]

Atape is THE AIX tape drive device driver.
If you don't have Atape installed you are relying on the generic scsi drivers and will have all sorts of problems trying to read tapes, especially on LTO drives, which are not considered to be AIX or pSeries / RS6000 products.
AIX only supports pSeries / RS6000 features and the LTO products are not.
Bung it on....

http://www-1.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?rs=543&uid=ssg1S4000093