Tape stops responding after error

[Don Lee]

Not much info on this one. I was rebuilding a 6.1 tape set, and it hit an error. The tape drive "clean" light came on after this happened.

 

The log looks like this:

 

+  Executing Rebuild at 4/28/12 (Activity Thread 2)
To Backup Set iCompute11 [001]...
!Trouble reading: "1-iCompute11 [001]" (649462), error -206 ( drive reported a failure: dirty heads, bad media, etc.)
!Trouble reading: "1-iCompute11 [001]" (649462), error -206 ( drive reported a failure: dirty heads, bad media, etc.)
!Trouble reading: "1-iCompute11 [001]" (649462), error -206 ( drive reported a failure: dirty heads, bad media, etc.)
!Trouble positioning: "1-iCompute11 [001]" (649462), error -206 ( drive reported a failure: dirty heads, bad media, etc.)
!Trouble reading: "1-iCompute11 [001]" (649462), error -206 ( drive reported a failure: dirty heads, bad media, etc.)
!Trouble positioning: "1-iCompute11 [001]" (649462), error -206 ( drive reported a failure: dirty heads, bad media, etc.)
!Trouble reading: "1-iCompute11 [001]" (649462), error -206 ( drive reported a failure: dirty heads, bad media, etc.)
!Trouble positioning: "1-iCompute11 [001]" (649462), error -206 ( drive reported a failure: dirty heads, bad media, etc.)
!Trouble reading: "1-iCompute11 [001]" (649462), error -206 ( drive reported a failure: dirty heads, bad media, etc.)
!Trouble positioning: "1-iCompute11 [001]" (649462), error -206 ( drive reported a failure: dirty heads, bad media, etc.)
Additional error information for device "HP DAT DDS-DC" [0:0],
 Sense > f0 00 03 00 00 00 04 0e 00 00 00 00 11 00 00 00 00 8d
 (぀灒翿	 |぀灒翿			 |぀灒翿 )
4/28/12 7:46:45 PM: Execution stopped by operator
Completed: 157495 files, 18.6 GB
Performance: 164.4 MB/minute
Duration: 04:25:21 (02:29:38 idle/loading/preparing)

 

The interesting thing is that the last 3 lines in the log above did not show up, and the tape drive stopped responding. The engine was clearly "stuck", thinking the drive had nothing in it. I manually ejected and re-inserted the tape, and the console did not "see" it. I restarted the engine, and the last 3 ines showed up in the log and the tape drive started responding again.

 

Mac OS X 10.6.8, 8 GB mem, mini. Retro 9.0.2.107

[Don Lee]

Addendum to this story.....

 

I re-tried the rebuild, and got a similar error again. This time, I was here to watch it, and noted that the tape stopped responding when it "gave up" on reading it and skipped to the next tape. However, this most recent time, the error messages had

not appeared in the log when it offered me to move on to the next tape. I ejected the "bad" tape, and put in the next one in the set. At that point, the tape drive appeared to be hung again, with the retro device manager saying that the drive was empty.

 

Believing that I needed to let some other operations finnish before restarting the engine, I left the tape in the drive, and about 45 minutes later, I noticed that the rebuild had resumed. In the log, I now see the errors, like before.

 

+  Executing Rebuild at 4/28/12 (Activity Thread 1)
   To Backup Set iCompute11 [001]...
   !Trouble reading: "1-iCompute11 [001]" (649462), error -206 ( drive reported a failure: dirty heads, bad media, etc.)
   !Trouble reading: "1-iCompute11 [001]" (649462), error -206 ( drive reported a failure: dirty heads, bad media, etc.)
   !Trouble reading: "1-iCompute11 [001]" (649462), error -206 ( drive reported a failure: dirty heads, bad media, etc.)
   !Trouble positioning: "1-iCompute11 [001]" (649462), error -206 ( drive reported a failure: dirty heads, bad media, etc.)
   !Trouble reading: "1-iCompute11 [001]" (649462), error -206 ( drive reported a failure: dirty heads, bad media, etc.)
   !Trouble positioning: "1-iCompute11 [001]" (649462), error -206 ( drive reported a failure: dirty heads, bad media, etc.)
   !Trouble reading: "1-iCompute11 [001]" (649462), error -206 ( drive reported a failure: dirty heads, bad media, etc.)
   !Trouble positioning: "1-iCompute11 [001]" (649462), error -206 ( drive reported a failure: dirty heads, bad media, etc.)
   !Trouble reading: "1-iCompute11 [001]" (649462), error -206 ( drive reported a failure: dirty heads, bad media, etc.)
   !Trouble positioning: "1-iCompute11 [001]" (649462), error -206 ( drive reported a failure: dirty heads, bad media, etc.)
   Additional error information for device "HP DAT DDS-DC" [0:0],
 Sense > f0 00 03 00 00 00 04 0e 00 00 00 00 11 00 00 00 00 8d
 (぀灒翿	 |぀灒翿			 |぀灒翿 )

[Don Lee]

I have learned from experience that my "poisoned" tape causes the tape drive to go "deaf" for several minutes after it his the "rough patch" near the end of the tape. After that, Retro no longer recognizes the tape in the drive, and when I put in a cleaning tape, Retro device status still shows "empty".

 

After some minutes, it works again.