Possible False Positives bad tapes

Question

Hello,

We have a TL-4000 That for the most part is running fine. However, the last 8 weeks or so, its been sending alerts like below:

Device :

Attention : Drive Warn or Crit Tape Alert flag

Event Code: 0x84 - tape alert

Element number: 0x07, 7

Drive number: 0x02, 2

Tape Alert Flag: 0x27, 39

This message was generated automatically from

IBM 3573-TL

Device :

Attention : Drive Warn or Crit Tape Alert flag

Event Code: 0x84 - tape alert

Element number: 0x07, 7

Drive number: 0x02, 2

Tape Alert Flag: 0x03, 3

This message was generated automatically from

IBM 3573-TL

Device :

Attention : Drive Cleaning request

Event Code: 0x82 - cleaning request

Drive number: 0x02, 2

This message was generated automatically from

IBM 3573-TL

So far its listed 4 brand new tapes as bad tapes. I was willing to give it the benefit of doubt when it found the first tape, but 4 tapes out of 20 new ones is a bit much. Also, Commvault is not detecting these tapes as bad, only the library is. Unfortunately, my knowledge on this unit is limited so im not sure how to troubleshoot or diagnose the problem and it is starting to interfere with monthly backups as it halts them. If anyone can help with this, i would be most appreciative.

Thanks.

mustafap · Answer

Hi Sam,       Like you said i pulled a drive dump for drive 2 and its saved as a bin file. Is that the one you need? If so, how do i view it or attach it it to this post? Thanks.

DELL-Sam L · Answer

Hello mustafap

So based on the tape alerts that you are getting is that looks like there maybe an issue with drive 2. Now to confirm this if I can get you to pull a drive dump log from drive 2 then we can review the log to see if the drive is needing to be replace or not.

Please let us know if you have any other questions.

DELL-Sam L · Answer

Hello mustafap, I sent you a private message & you can reply back with the log that would be great. Please let us know if you have any other questions.

DELL-Sam L · Answer

Hello mustafap,

So after looking at the logs the issue is with the drive and not your media. The issue is with the read/write heads in the drive. Now since I see that these errors have happened on 5 different tapes what is going to need to be done is that you will need to replace the drive.

Please let us know if you have any other questions

marko.filipovic · Answer

Hello,

we face the same problem at the moment. Backup jobs could not complete on some new tapes, message:

Storage device "Tape drive 0006" reported an error on a request to write data to media. Error reported: The request could not be performed because of an I/O device error. V-79-57344-34029 - A hardware error occurred.

Verify- \\DEISMMXS01.pt.local\C:
An inconsistency was encountered on the storage media in Tape drive 0006. V-79-57344-33994 - The data being read from the media is inconsistent.

tapelibraryfixer · Answer

Im not sure you will get much help from Dell in here considering its a Tandberg unit with a HP drive. But if it doing the same thing with new and old tapes its probably a drive issue.

PowerVault

Possible False Positives bad tapes

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