Autoloader 1/8 VS80 unload jam & write failures

[John Rowan_2]

I have an HP C9264CB Autoloader 1/8 VS80 tape unit and a similar Dell device.  I back up to 6 tapes in the HP on Fridays.  Two weeks ago the tape writes began failing at random intervals then the device which unloads the tape from the drive into the carousel slipped off the tape leaving the tape between the drive and carousel.  I ran diagnostics and the other 5 tapes would load / unload without problems but this particular DLT IV cartridge always caused the unload mechanism to slip and generate the jamb failure.  I threw out that cartridge substituting another, ran diags and all 6 loaded / unloaded for 24 iterations of the diag.  The backup attempted to run last night and failed to write to cartridges 1, 3, 4 and 5 and unloading 5 jambed again.  I take the same cartridges load them into the Dell and the backups run without problems.  I've used an HP cleaning tape on the HP Autoloader (even though the clean drive light wasn't on).   I have two other HP Autoloader 1/8 units that worked fine but started doing similar things and I retired them.  I have too many tapes in the library to move away from the DLT IV format.  Any suggestions as to how I can get my HP Autoloader back in running shape?

P.S. This thread has been moved from Archival Products to Tape Libraries and Drives - HP Forums Moderator

[John Rowan_2]

I forgot to mention, the first time the write failures occurred I manually ran the tar -zcvf /dev/st2  /directory-name 

commands to each tape and they ran without problem.  I used the same cartridges that had filed via the script.

[John Rowan_2]

Tried running backup manually and it failed with tape write error

mtx -f /dev/sg4 load 6

Loading media from Storage Element 6 into drive 0...done

[root@gemini backupscripts]# tar -zcvf /dev/st1 /mnt/buffalo/edited/*
tar: Removing leading `/' from member names
/mnt/buffalo/edited/01D3E000
/mnt/buffalo/edited/12568 10x15 envelopes 2 lots (6-07).doc
/mnt/buffalo/edited/
/mnt/buffalo/edited/.DS_Store
/mnt/buffalo/edited/Fonts/
/mnt/buffalo/edited/Fonts/._AvantGarDem
/mnt/buffalo/edited/Fonts/._AvantGarDemObl
/mnt/buffalo/edited/Fonts/._Helvetica.suit
/mnt/buffalo/edited/Fonts/._MinioBol
/mnt/buffalo/edited/Fonts/AvantGarDem
/mnt/buffalo/edited/Fonts/AvantGarDemObl
/mnt/buffalo/edited/Fonts/Helvetica.suit
/mnt/buffalo/edited/Fonts/MinioBol
/mnt/buffalo/edited/Pictures/
/mnt/buffalo/edited/Pictures/._Club Style.eps
/mnt/buffalo/edited/Pictures/._club symbols.eps
/mnt/buffalo/edited/Pictures/._Upper_logo_updated011609_1.tif
/mnt/buffalo/edited/Pictures/._golfer idea.tif
/mnt/buffalo/edited/Pictures/._idea ball.tif
/mnt/buffalo/edited/Pictures/Club Style.eps
/mnt/buffalo/edited/Pictures/club symbols.eps
/mnt/buffalo/edited/Pictures/Upper_logo_updated011609_1.tif
/mnt/buffalo/edited/Pictures/golfer idea.tif

tar (child): /dev/st1: Cannot write: Input/output error
tar (child): Error is not recoverable: exiting now
tar: /dev/st1: Wrote only 4096 of 10240 bytes
tar: Error is not recoverable: exiting now