MSL5026 Incompatible format

[Mohamed K Ahmed]

Hi all,
I have a MSL5026 with 110/220 tapes that was used to backup windows 2000 server.
Now It is connected to an ES40 Tru64UNIX version 5.1B server and used to backup the mount points using vdump commands.
Before using the tapes that were used to backup the windows 2000 server, do I have to format the tapes before using them on the unix server?
The reason I am asking is that I used one of those tapes and it had an error of "Cannot Read Medium - Incompatible Format". This happened on about 2 tapes out of 5

Please advice

Mohamed

[Michael Schulte zur Sur]

Hi,

could you specify, what you meant by used?
commands, etc.

Michael

[Mohamed K Ahmed]

It was used to backup a windows 2000 server using Arcserve.
Now I am using it to backup a UNIX system using commands vdump
vdump -0 -u -f /dev/ntape/tape2c /
vdump -0 -u -f /dev/ntape/tape2c /usr
.....
mt -f /dev/ntape/tape2c offline
sleep 600
vdump -0 -u -f /dev/ntape/tape2c /d1
vdump -0 -u -f /dev/ntape/tape2c /d2
....

whered1 and d2 are mount points

[Michael Schulte zur Sur]

Hi,

Is the changer working properly?
What about cleaning tape?
Have you checked on the backup with vrestore?
Do you have this tool?
http://h18006.www1.hp.com/products/storageworks/ltt/index.html

Michael

[Mohamed K Ahmed]

The changer is working fine and didn't ask for cleaning.
I tried other tapes and they are working, so the problem is contained to these bunch of tapes that were used before with Arcserve and and windows server.
I just donloaded the LTT and will try to get more information out of it.

[David Ruska]

LTT runs on Tru64. If you go to the support tool in LTT, you can generate a support ticket (either view it or save it to a file).

If you post the support ticket, I can look at the drive event logs, which will tell us if the drive couldn't read the tape.

[Mohamed K Ahmed]

I have installed LTT and attached is the support file as well as the entries from the dia errorlog file

Please let me know of any other steps I should take or if you need more info

Mohamed

[David Ruska]

The drive logs do not have any errors for the last 2000 hours. The drive does not log rejected commands.

From the sense data you all provided:
Sense Key x05 Illegal Request
ASC & ASCQ x3002
Cannot Read Medium - Incompatible Format

So, the drive doesn't think the tape loaded is in a supported format. Were the tapes written by these drives?

[Mohamed K Ahmed]

The tapes are 110/220 and were written on before by the same drive when it was connected to a Proliant windows 2000 server useing Arcserve backup software

Any suggestions

[Michael Schulte zur Sur · Accepted solution]

Hi,

try to erase those tapes with:
dd if=/dev/zero of=/devices/ntape/tape2c

Michael

[David Ruska]

What version of firmware were the tapes written with? You are on V51 drive firmware right now.

[Mohamed K Ahmed]

The version is 51
I did the dd if=/dev/null of=/dev/ntape/tape1c command
I will follow up tomorrow

Mohamed

[Mohamed K Ahmed]

Just to let you know, I have installed LTT tools, they did not report any errors.
I have also zero'ed the tape before backups last night and it worked fine.
I will wait till we get the unattended full backups during the weekend and post my last summary.
Hope nothing will happen till then.

Mohamed

[Mohamed K Ahmed]

Just to let you know...The tapes are working fine after I "zero" them.
I will post af ull summary on Monday

Mohamed

[Mohamed K Ahmed]

I think the trick with zeroing the tapes worked perfectly for me. The backups went fine and that error is not reported anymore.

I used
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/ntape/tapexc where x is the tape drive number

Thanks
Mohamed