by I've been having some trouble recently trying to understand an
error which pops up during a backup procedure on our SparcStation 2
running SunOS 4.1.1. This error seems to surface when using
/usr/etc/dump or /bin/bar. An error is displayed to the console,
and an error of sorts is sent to root via mail.
The console error resembles the following:
st0 Error for command 'write', Error level: 'Fatal'
Block 17640 File Number: 0
Sense Key: Media Error
Block 17640 File Number: 0
Sense Key: Media Error
st0 Error for command 'write file mark', Error level: 'Fatal'
Block 17640
Sense Key: Media Error
bar: Insert Volume 2 and press Return when ready.
The mail message to root resembles the following:
bar: Insert Volume 2 and press Return when ready.
bar: Insert Volume 3 and press Return when ready.
Sometimes the above error repeats up to 5 times, and when I verify
the data on the tape using /bin/bar tvf /dev/rst0, it's there!.
What I don't understand is why when cron runs the script backup,
an error is produced when the end of the tape is reached.
The error is also encountered when using dump.
As per the instructions in the Network Administration Manual
(Chapter 6 / File Maintenance):
A Sample Dump for using QIC-150
# /usr/etc/dump 0cdtsf 1250 18 570 /dev/rst0 /dev/r_partition
Still produces an error which states:
Dump: Tape write error 691 feet to tape 1
Dump: NEEDS ATTENTION: Do you want to restart?
I don't understand why a brand new 3M tape would have this problem,
why would dump try to write 691 feet to a tape 600 feet long using
570 as the default length.
Any assistance or insight into these errors would be appreciated.
Thank You in Advance. :-)
Ralph Landsinger