Many soft write errors

[Bob_Andrews_2]

v10 sp1 on win2k AS SP4 Spectralogic Gator (2x AIT-3) on Adaptec 29160

After running the Spectralogic box for over a year with few problems on BE v9.1 for NetWare I recently migrated the media server to v10 on Win2k. Newer server, same SCSII card.

I'm seeing many (tens to thousands) of soft write errors on multiple tapes and jobs are failing with the occasional hard read/write error. The library has 120 slots so I've started retiring the problem tapes as a temporary measure to see if it is indeed bad media.

Researching this problem leads to a bewildering tally of potential problems. Has anyone had a similar experience and can shed any light on this?

Thanks,
Bob

[Michael_McKenne]

I have found that cleaning the tape drive every 25 hours and full format of a tape every 30 uses can help with soft errors. Did you try a full format on your tape?

[Justin_Mitchell]

I'm having the same issue. I'm running Win2k SP4 Veritas V10
SP1 with a Adaptec 29160 Controller. I am using a brand new Quantum SDLT 600 and brand new tapes.

[Shyam_Sundar]

Hello,

We apologise for the inconvenience caused because of
the delayed response. Please let us know if your issue
still persists. If yes, please refer the steps mentioned
below. If not, we will mark this case as assumed
answered and move it to answered questions pool.

For issues soft-write errors, frequent cleaning of the device helps. The device should be cleaned once in a fortnight, so that such soft-write errors are removed. Please refer to the following document to get more information about cleaning jobs.



http://support.veritas.com/docs/235900

Also the following document helps.



http://support.veritas.com/docs/229641]

NOTE : If we do not receive your reply within two
business days, this post would be marked ‘assumed
answered’ and would be moved to ‘answered questions’
pool.

[Madhuri_Shenoy]

As per our previous reply, marking the case as "assumed answered" and moving it to "answered questions" pool.

[Mark_Mills]

Just wanted to add my 2 cents, I have a Quantum SuperLoader attached to a Adaptec 29160. I have been running Veritas Backup Exec since version 7.2 and am now running Ver 10 rev 5520. I never had the soft write error problem until version 10. We use Quantum SDLT 160/320 media. Even after using the cleaning tape 8 times I still get errors. Now some of the errors report:

Storage device "QUANTUM 1" reported an error on a request to write data to media.
Error reported:
Data error (cyclic redundancy check).
This could be caused by either a dirty tape drive, bad media, or a SCSI problem.
V-79-57344-34028 - Error reading/writing data from/to the media.

I don't recall having this problem in version 9 wiht the same backup device, only version 10.