need refresher course on DC600A / AT&T STU problems
John Canning
john at banzai.PCC.COM
Fri Nov 30 14:38:20 AEST 1990
Here's what I've got on the thread:
In article <1990Nov13.195548.17967 at DMI.USherb.CA> beauchem at terre.DMI.USherb.CA (Denis Beauchemin) writes:
>Hi everybody,
>
>We are plaged by a "I/O Error on write(), errno 5, I/O Error" message almost
>every time we use our 120 MB tape drives (we have 3 on different 6386 systems).
>Could someone tell me what is the cause of these errors?
>
>I know it's related to hardware, but changing the tape drive or the media
>doesn't make it go away. We can't do reliable backups because of that! Help!
>(and AT&T isn't very helpful either)
>
>Please answer by email since I cannot keep up with this list...
Here's an answer for the rest of the net (just in case):
We have had similar errors on machines all over the place. This
summer, AT&T announced (very quietly) that the only recommended tape
for the 6386 125MB tape drive is the DC-6150. Other tapes (such
as the DC-600A, which used to be recommended), have turned out
not to work reliably.
AT&T recommends replacing a tape after 30 complete read/writes. They
also recommend cleaning the tape heads weekly, and especially after
using a brand new tape.
We have found that once you get an I/O error #5, you must either
reboot the system, or issue the command tapectl -r. Both actions
appear to reset the tape drive, which seems like a necessary step.
Now, if only AT&T would add this information to their user's manual...
John Canning ...uunet!uvm-gen!banzai!john
The People's Computer Company ...attmail!banzai!john
Williston, Vermont john at banzai.pcc.com
802-864-0747
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