LTO3 tapes being marked as "Not Appendable (End marker unreadable)"

[David_Ladkin]

Hi there,
Hope you guys can help, and I apologies in advance if this subject has already been discussed here.

This is happening on one of our sites, which unfortunately I'm no where near so I can't do any hands on diagnostics.

Basically, the back up has been failing on many occasions and we seem to have tracked the problem down to some of the tapes being marked in BE as "Not Appendable (End marker unreadable)" {below are some details}:


"Overwrite Protection Until: Overwriteable"
"Appendable Until: Not Appendable (End marker unreadable)"

Errors:
Seek Errors: 0
Soft Write Errors: 3
Hard Write Errors: 2
Soft Read Errors: 5
Hard Read Errors: 0

We believe that the failures are due to some of the tapes being marked in that fashion, so do you know how and why they got marked like, also we can change their marking to "Infinite: Allow Append"

After looking at other threads on this forum, I'm thinking about running long erasures on the "Not Appendable" tapes.

If you need more information, please let me know

Hope you can help
Many thanks,
Dave

[Gauri_Ketkar]

Hi David,

" long erase " on the tapes would definately help you also refer the technote given below :

Tape Media is marked as "not appendable" if the Backup Exec Job Engine stops during a backup.
http://support.veritas.com/docs/274858



Update us on the same and revert for any further Query
Hope this will help you


Thank you
Gauri

[David_Ladkin]

Hi there,
I tried a long erasure on one of the "Not Appendable" tapes, and although the Job Monitor says 100% Successful, I get this from an error log:


----- TapeAlert Events -----

The device has reported the following TapeAlert diagnostic information.
Please contact your device manufacturer for more information regarding TapeAlerts.

Warning - The tape drive may have a hardware fault.
Check for availability of diagnostic information and run extended diagnostics if applicable.
Check the tape drive users manual for instructions on running extended diagnostic tests and retrieving diagnostic data.
Robotic Library:
Drive: IBM 2
Slot:

Warning - A severe error occurred while reading or writing data. This job may not have been successfully completed.
Robotic Library:
Drive: IBM 2
Slot:

Critical - The tape is damaged or the drive is faulty. Call the tape supplier helpline.
Robotic Library:
Drive: IBM 2
Slot:



I suspect that the tape drive, which was only replaced very recently, was either not installed correctly, faulty or has become faulty since installation.

Can you help please?

Cheers,
Dave

[David_Ladkin]

Hi there,
I tried that and although the Job Monitor says that it was successful, the below is what I got from the error log:


----- TapeAlert Events -----

The device has reported the following TapeAlert diagnostic information.
Please contact your device manufacturer for more information regarding TapeAlerts.

Warning - The tape drive may have a hardware fault.
Check for availability of diagnostic information and run extended diagnostics if applicable.
Check the tape drive users manual for instructions on running extended diagnostic tests and retrieving diagnostic data.
Robotic Library:
Drive: IBM 2
Slot:

Warning - A severe error occurred while reading or writing data. This job may not have been successfully completed.
Robotic Library:
Drive: IBM 2
Slot:

Critical - The tape is damaged or the drive is faulty. Call the tape supplier helpline.
Robotic Library:
Drive: IBM 2
Slot:


The tape is still marked as "Not Appendable"

I suspect that the tape drive was either not installed properly, faulty or has become faulty since installation.

Can you help please?

Cheers,
Dave

[tejashree_Bhate]

Hello,

Please install the latest Veritas drivers . Also check the event viewer for device related errors . Event id 7,9,11 15

Request you to update.


Thanks

[David_Ladkin]

Fantastic! That seems to be doing the trick.

After installing the driver (http://seer.support.veritas.com/docs/284012.htm) and rebooting, I was able to perform an inventory and a long erasure without any hardware fails reported. I then went on to perform a full system back up with the same tape, which is now marked as "Appendable".

I'm currently going through all of the site's LTO3 tapes and running long erasures on the other affected tapes. Once all of the affected tapes have been effectivly reformatted and performed successful back ups, I'll come back to you but I think this problem has now been resolved.

Thank you so very much for you help

Cheers,
Dave

[David_Ladkin]

Thank you so very much.

The long erasure, followed by the latest driver installation, has made the tapes "Appendable" once more and they are performing successful back ups again.

Thank you very much for your help.

Cheers,
Dave