Tape or Drive issue?

[ofladung]

Hello All,

I have some problems with tapes (or the drives) since a few days. I reveive the following event messages (application log)

Event Type: Warning
Event Source: Networker
Event Category: Media
Event ID: 1
Date: 20.07.2007
Time: 12:54:21
User: N/A
Computer: Backupserver
Description:
NetWorker media: (warning) \\.\Tape0 writing: The request could not be performed because of an I/O device error., at file 9 record 17840

and

Event Type: Information
Event Source: Networker
Event Category: Media
Event ID: 1
Date: 20.07.2007
Time: 12:54:21
User: N/A
Computer: Backupserver
Description:
NetWorker media: (notice) verification of volume "ABC142L3", volid 2912980872 failed, volume is being marked as full.


Event Type: Warning
Event Source: Networker
Event Category: Media
Event ID: 1
Date: 20.07.2007
Time: 12:54:21
User: N/A
Computer: Backupserver
Description:
NetWorker media: (warning) verification of volume "ABC142L3", volid 2912980872 failed, read open error: drive status is Drive reports no error - but state is unknown

It was a new tape, and only 15GB had been written. Ideas?

Regards,
Oliver

 

[605]

If NW can not recover from a write error, it will mark the media as full. However, the cause might be unknown.

 

[TDun]

Look in the event logs for SCSI sense key errors aginst the device rahter hthan Networker.
Se what sense keys and such it reprots.
e.g Sense key 0x03 ASC 020 ASCQ 040 (before anyone yells, those are random number choices for a media fail, not necessarily valid codes).

Tony

 

[Martin999]

In a nutshell, as 605 says, probably ipossible to tell from just this information.

If you have many tapes failing in just one drive, it is likely to be the drive. I f you have many tapes failing across many drives it may be a bad drive damaging the tapes.

Unfortunately, it's nearly impossible to tell in some cases.

Take a look at StorSentry from Imation (no I donlt work for them), but have seen and tested the software and it's the business - this would solve your issue, most likely before you had the failure.

Martin