Tape problem - Hardware or OS-Version

[Andreas Fassl]

Hi,

a customer sent me a tape for data conversion, written on his VAX.
System-Config: TLZ06 with VMS 6.2
My System: OpenVMS 7.1 Alpha with a HP C1537A (Dat3)

Tried some hints found in elder threads, but no positive results.

What type of DAT-standard does the TLZ06?

Any other hints?

Thanks in advance,

with kind regards

Andreas
ORASRV::SYSTEM $ backup/list mka600:cam.bck/save
Listing of save set(s)

%BACKUP-F-POSITERR, error positioning MKA600:[000000]CAM.BCK;
-SYSTEM-F-OPINCOMPL, operation is incomplete
ORASRV::SYSTEM $ dismount mka600:/nounload
ORASRV::SYSTEM $ backup/list mka600:cam.bck/save
Listing of save set(s)

%MOUNT-I-MOUNTED, CAM mounted on _ORASRV$MKA600:
%BACKUP-F-LABELERR, error in tape label processing on MKA600:[000000]CAM.BCK;
-BACKUP-F-NOTANSI, tape is not valid ANSI format

ORASRV::SYSTEM $ dump mka600:
%DUMP-E-READERR, error reading MKA600:
-SYSTEM-F-OPINCOMPL, operation is incomplete

[Karl Rohwedder]

Adreas, I think your tapedrive should be able to read a properly written TLZ06 tape.
Did you know the format, your customer wrote the tape?

You may try a:
$ mount /over=id mka600:
$ dir mka600:

or

$ mount/for mka600:
$ back/list mka600:*.*

regards Kalle

[Andreas Fassl]

ORASRV::SYSTEM $ mount/for mka600
%MOUNT-I-MOUNTED, mounted on _ORASRV$MKA600:
ORASRV::SYSTEM $ dir mka600:
%DIRECT-E-OPENIN, error opening MKA600:[SYSMGR]*.*;* as input
-SYSTEM-F-NOTFILEDEV, device is not file structured
ORASRV::SYSTEM $

[Andreas Fassl]

ORASRV::SYSTEM $ mount/for mka600
%MOUNT-I-MOUNTED, mounted on _ORASRV$MKA600:
ORASRV::SYSTEM $ backup/list mka600
%BACKUP-F-LISINPSAV, /LIST requires save set as input
ORASRV::SYSTEM $ backup/list mka600:*.*
Listing of save set(s)

%BACKUP-F-LABELERR, error in tape label processing on MKA600:[000000]*.*;
-BACKUP-F-NOTANSI, tape is not valid ANSI format
ORASRV::SYSTEM $

[Andreas Fassl]

ORASRV::SYSTEM $ mount/over=id mka600:
%MOUNT-I-OPRQST, device _ORASRV$MKA600: contains the wrong volume
%MOUNT-I-OPRQST, Please mount device _ORASRV$MKA600:
Interrupt

ORASRV::SYSTEM $ mount/over=(id,access,owner) mka600:
%MOUNT-I-OPRQSTCAN, operator request canceled
%MOUNT-I-OPRQST, device _ORASRV$MKA600: contains the wrong volume
%MOUNT-I-OPRQST, Please mount device _ORASRV$MKA600:
Interrupt

[Andreas Fassl]

My experience was, that DAT was sort of unreliable in the end. I'll try this with an old original DAT drive again. If I've no success, I'll send the customer my drive.

Any other hints?

You see, that the drive mounts the tape with the correct label (CAM), but then - ...

[Karl Rohwedder]

I would ask the customer for the exactly commands he used when writing the tape. May be the tape is just bad.

regards Kalle

[Andreas Fassl]

Hi,

he just the standard backup commands. Maybe the tape is bad, but I did send him a tape I initialized on my drive. This tape he couldn't mount, too.
So my guess - drives are not defect, but for some reasons they can't interoperate.

Regards

Andreas

[Karl Rohwedder]

May be the read/write heads in one of the tapedrives are badly misaligned, so that interchaning tapes is not possible.

regards Kalle

[Thomas Ritter]

Maybe...

$ mount /over=id mka600:
$ copy/log mka600:*.* *.*

[Wim Van den Wyngaert]

If the data is not too large : http://www.yousendit.com/

Wim

[Vladimir Fabecic]

This should be a hardware problem. I had simular problem with some old alpha servers (with old TLZ06 tape drives). Only one of three tape drives could read data.
Then we realized that old tape drives and old cartridges is not something to trust. And I used external DLT drive and everything worked OK.
Find better solution then DAT drives.

Regards

[Phillip Thayer]

Andreas,

This is most likely a tape head alignment problem. Unfortunately this has been a problem with tape drives since the 9-track tape days. I have seen this numerous times and a simple call for hardware maintenance to do a tape head alignment (which these days is usually a hardware swap for a different drive while the take the bad one to a shop and align the heads) should take care of the problem.

Phil