I have a Exabyte 8505 XL internal tape drive connected to a the
narrow channel of an Adaptec 2940UW, and when ever I attempt to perform a
large backup (i.e. 5GB to a 160m XL tape), after about four hours it fails
and the kernel throws a lot of medium error, excessive read/write errrors,
and random positioning errors. Small backups (a few hundred megs) work w/o
trouble. What can I do to solve this?
To get a little more specific, here is what I am seeing from the
kenel approximately 2-4 hours after the backup begins (using afio):
kernel: st0: Error with sense data: Deferred error st 09:00: sense key Medium Error
kernel: Additional sense indicates Excessive write errors
kernel: st0: Error on write filemark.
kernel: st0: Error with sense data: extra data not valid
kernel: st0: Error with sense data: Current error st09:00: sense key Medium Error
kernel: Additional sense indicates Read retries exhausted
Additional sense indicates Random positioning error
st0: Error with sense data: extra data not valid EOM Current error st09:00: sense key
Medium Error
In approximately this order as well. I have tried this with about four
different tapes, all less than six months old and lightly used. I have
also cleaned the drive with an Exabyte cleaning tape multiple times as
well.
To add to the problems the kernel boot up messages recongize the
drive as an EXB8500, while according to Exabyte's tape identification page
on their web site (i.e pictures of drive fronts), it is an EXB8505/XL, and
that is what I remember it saying on the tape drive itself before I
installed it (I would take the system apart and look at the drive itself,
but I am 1k miles away from it till May). Also, even after multiple
cleanings, the cleaning light is not turning off. Once again from
Exabyte's site, they say that the drive needs new firmware, so I download
the directed firmware, and attempt to load it as per instructions under
DOS with EXPERT (Exabyte utility). It tells me I have the wrong firmware
image for this drive, and tells me to get the 8500 firmware image. I get
that, and then it says it can't install the new firmware!
This drive was bought used off of Ebay (ok, that is probably my
first mistake) but it worked fine for a couple of weeks, then started
causing serious SCSI problems and system crashes (according to another
person working on the machine at the time) and then started behaving
itself again, and could actually backup and verify all 5-6GB, no problem.
Then it went south again, though it has yet to crash the machine again.
Lastly, the specs on the host machine are PII 350MHz, 384MB RAM,
8GB HD, RH5.2, kernel 2.0.37.
So, does any one out there have any ideas on how to make this
drive behave? I would call Exabyte, but this model is discontinued and
they want me to pay money for the support. :( Or, should I just junk it
and buy a real/new tape drive (i.e. VXA)? Thanks for any help you can
give me!
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| "For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain." |
| --- Philippians 1:21 (KJV) |
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| Ryan Kirkpatrick | Boulder, Colorado | http://www.rkirkpat.net/ |
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