Conference stkhlm::magtape

3730.0. "TSZ07 & DU3.2G" by HGOVC::NANDAN () Fri Apr 18 1997 14:17

    
    A customer has a 4100 5/400 running DIGITAL UNIX 3.2G. They are 
    using 2 x TSZ07s (tz20 & tz28). 
    
    The customer is using a freeware program to read the tape created 
    on an IBM system. The program is able to read a majority of tapes, 
    but in some tapes it reports an error.
    
    These tapes are however readable on the IBM system. One guess 
    would be the media & the level of sensitivity of the two drives, 
    with the TSZ07 being more sensitive to media errors.
    
    My questions are -
    1. From the info given below, what is the likely cause of the 
       problem.
    2. Is there a known DIGITAL UNIX patch for 3.2G and TSZ07s.
    3. If the problem is indeed the sensitivity of the tape drives to 
       media errors, can this be suppressed at the level of software, 
       i.e using 'scu' or some such thing.
    4. Incidentally, is there a 'user-friendly' version of SCU 
       available somewhere. The SCU appendix in the manual assumes a 
       lot of knowledge about SCSI concepts, etc.
    
    Can someone please provide some inputs.
    
    Thanks in advance.
    
    Nandan.
    ******************************************************************
    Additional information follows -
    
    The 'uerf' entry shows the devices as follows -
    ------------------------------------------------------------------
    tz20 at scsi2 bus 2 target 4 lun 0
    _(DEC  TSZ07  0309)
    tz28 at scsi3 bus 3 target 4 lun 0
    _(DEC  TSZ07  0309)
    ------------------------------------------------------------------
    The freeware program reports the following error -
    ------------------------------------------------------------------
    Tape AMA123 labelled on 11 Apr 1997
    
    1:  U970411140056AMA (VB,2044,2048)  11 Apr 1997 DMS100
    readtape: I/O error on tape while copying
    readtape: I/O error
    readtape: sense key 0 (NO_SENSE) whatever that means after an 
       error - please report this
    readtape: while reading file 1 ('U970411140056AMA') block 12
    readtape: 1 bad blocks were skipped
    File copied to u970411140056ama (9026036 bytes)
    readtape: there were I/O errors detected on tape
    ------------------------------------------------------------------
    The 'uerf' entries for the errors is attached below -
********************************* ENTRY    42. *********************************

----- EVENT INFORMATION -----

EVENT CLASS                             ERROR EVENT 
OS EVENT TYPE                  199.     CAM SCSI 
SEQUENCE NUMBER                  3.
OPERATING SYSTEM                        DEC OSF/1 
OCCURRED/LOGGED ON                      Mon Mar 27 15:52:57 1997
OCCURRED ON SYSTEM                      mediation 
SYSTEM ID                 x00070016     
SYSTYPE                   x00000000

----- UNIT INFORMATION -----

CLASS                         x0022     DEC SIM 
SUBSYSTEM                     x0000     DISK 
BUS #                         x0003
                              x00E0     LUN x0
                                        TARGET x4

********************************* ENTRY    43. *********************************

----- EVENT INFORMATION -----

EVENT CLASS                             ERROR EVENT 
OS EVENT TYPE                  199.     CAM SCSI 
SEQUENCE NUMBER                  2.
OPERATING SYSTEM                        DEC OSF/1 
OCCURRED/LOGGED ON                      Mon Mar 24 17:47:32 1997
OCCURRED ON SYSTEM                      mediation 
SYSTEM ID                 x00070016     
SYSTYPE                   x00000000

----- UNIT INFORMATION -----

CLASS                         x0022     DEC SIM 
SUBSYSTEM                     x0000     DISK 
BUS #                         x0002
                              x00A0     LUN x0
                                        TARGET x4

********************************* ENTRY    44. *********************************