fbackup error with LTO-3 tape drive

[Kishore Gowda]

We have a LTO-3 (HP) tape drive attached (SCSI) to RP8400. I was able to fbackup/frestore with out any issues for last few months. However, over the past 2 weeks, fbackup fails with following error.

fbackup(1004): session begins on Mon Dec 10 13:59:39 2007
fbackup(3203): volume 1 has been used 1 time(s)
fbackup(3024): writing volume 1 to the output file /dev/rmt/1m
fbackup(9999): Permission denied
fbackup(3108): write error on a record in the ANSII label
fbackup(3025): write error at the beginning of the volume
fbackup(3310): enter '^[yY]' when volume 1 is ready on /dev/rmt/1m,
or '^[nN]' to discontinue:

I have tried cleaning tape drive, swapped tape drive with another LTO-3 unit, but still get the same error. The OS version is HP-UX 11.11 Please advice. Thanks!

[melvyn burnard]

have you checked to see if the actual tape is write protected?
Also, try using tar to see if that works

[Steven E. Protter]

Shalom,

Another pehaps the device file has been overwritten.

Check that it looks correct. If not good, rmsf it and insf the system again.

SEP

[Kishore Gowda]

The tape is not write protected. Infact I have used 3 different tapes (new tapes) to no avail. tar also fails as follows.

# tar cvfp /dev/rmt/1m /sysadmin
a /sysadmin/downloads/unzip-5.52-hppa-11.11.depot 820 blocks
Tar: end of tape
Tar: to continue, enter device/file name when ready or null string to quit.

Lastly, did rmsf and insf, still no go. I have also rebooted server. Can this be an issue with SCSI HBA or perhaps SCSI cable. These are the only two things that I have not replaced so far. Thanks!

[melvyn burnard]

well somethign is certainly not rioght down that scsi chain then.
You may want to use stm or check syslogs to see if there are any pointer sreported there, but I think you shoul dnow start looking at the SCSI chain, including the termintator

[Kishore Gowda]

syslog has following error:
SCSI TAPE: dev = 0xcd063000 I/O error during close
I will start looking to cable / terminator / hba. Thank you.

[Gail O'Connor]

Check the Tape - if it is marked WORM - Write Once Read Many - it will only write to the tape once.