mksysb error 0511-432:A write error occured; Error 0

[assist]

hi.i need ur help in solving this problem which i had recently.after doing the smitty mksysb on one of the nodes; it says

command : failure.
0511-432 A write error occured; Error 0
0511-079 The backup media may be damaged.Use a different disk to run the backup.
0512-005 mksysb : Backup completed.The backup command completed with errors.The messages displayed on standard errors contained additional information.
0512-040 mksysb : WARNING: /mksysb/webserv01.image does not appear to be a tape drive and does not have a bootable image.

i'm totally blank about this as i'm new to aix.btw,this aix is 4.3.3 and runs on SP2 machine which has 6 nodes on it.

 

[Skeater]

There are a few things with AIX tape drives that need to be noted.
1. The size of the drive and the size of the tape.
You cannot write to a tape that has a higher capacity
then the tape drive.
2. If you are using an 8mm or 4mm drive, you need to answer "yes" to "disable software packing" question on mksysb page.
3. Your density settings have to be correct in order to write to a specific tape. You can go into "change/show settings of a tape drive" and do F1 for a list of density settings.

I would make sure that I could tar a small file to the tape drive prior to doing the mksysb to make certain there was no problem with the tape or drive.

 

[aixqueen]

It would be helpful to know what command you used to do the backup...
and the last part of the message about not bootable is normal for a SP doing a
remote backup...since it is written to a file and is indeed not bootable...except to be
used by NIM...

On The other error...my guess is the filesystem is full that you are backing up to,
or you are getting errors in the errpt where you are backing up as in disk errors..
check the cws errpt if that is where you are backing up to....or you used a wrong
flag.....?
----------------

0511-079
The backup media may be damaged
Possible Causes

From the command line, you issued the backup command naming a tape device
with the block size set to 0, but specified a value with the -b flag that is larger
than the maximum allowable write size for the tape device.

From the command line, you issued the backup command naming a tape device,
but specified a value with the -b flag that does not yield a whole number
multiple of the tape device's physical block size.

From the command line, you issued the following command:

find File -print| backup -ivf FileSystem/FileName

but the specified FileSystem was full.
The backup media is damaged.

Procedures for Recovery
Specify a value with the -b flag that does not exceed the
maximum allowable write size for the tape device, or do not
use this flag.

Specify a value with the -b flag that yields a whole
number multiple of the tape device's physical block
size (-b Number, where Number is the number of 512-byte blocks).

Note: You can use the lsattr command to check the '
physical block size of the device:

lsattr -l rmt# -E
Remove unnecessary files from the file system,
o r use the chfs command to increase the file system and
rerun the backup command.

Check the error log for media errors:
errpt -a
Use a different tape or disk to run the backup.