I believe the 1521b is a dds2 drive - although  that fact doesn't
necesarily mean the drives are actually dds2's.

However, if they ARE dds2's, those drives are notoriously unreliable - or,
a more technical term, flakey.

If possible, replace one of the drives with a dds3 or dds4 drive - keeping
in mind that they cannot read 60m tapes (and the dds4 cannot read 90m
tapes).

You may find the dds3 or dds4 drive will be able to read the tapes that the
dds2 drives cannot - even if the dds2 drive actually created the tape.

It may be worth a try considering the drives can be acquired very cheaply.

Especially if the data is important to you.

I recall many years ago when a customer had a disc crash that required a
reload after disk replacement.

The dds2 tape drive could not read the previous night's backup that it
itself had produced.

A suggestion by the assigned HP CE to try the reload from a dds3 tape drive
worked flawlessly.

An event I'll never forget.

On Friday, January 25, 2013, Wyell Grunwald wrote:

> I seem to be having issues with my tape drives.  I have two tape drives,
> both of which give this below after several minutes in:
>
> sysgen> TA
>         **error** error writing file TAPEIPL.MPEXL.SYS onto boottape
>          UNIT FAILURE  (FSERR 30)
>
> +-F-I-L-E---I-N-F-O-R-M-A-T-I-O-N---D-I-S-P-L-A-Y+
> !  FILE NAME IS SYSGTAPE                         !
> !  FOPTIONS: NEW,BINARY,FORMAL,U,NOCCTL,FEQ      !
> !            NOLABEL                             !
> !  AOPTIONS: OUTPUT,NOMR,NOLOCK,DEF,NOBUF        !
> !            NOMULTI,WAIT,NOCOPY                 !
> !  DEVICE TYPE: 24     DEVICE SUBTYPE: 7         !
> !  LDEV: 7        DRT: 7         UNIT: 0         !
> !  RECORD SIZE: 8192   BLOCK SIZE: 8192  (WORDS) !
> !  EXTENT SIZE: 0      MAX EXTENTS: 0            !
> !  RECPTR: 3           RECLIMIT: 0               !
> !  LOGCOUNT: 3            PHYSCOUNT: 3           !
> !  EOF AT: 0           LABEL ADDR: %00000000000  !
> !  FILE CODE: 0        ULABELS: 0                !
> !  FILE OWNER:                                   !
> !  PHYSICAL STATUS: 0000000100000001             !
> !  ERROR NUMBER: 30    RESIDUE: 0                !
> !  BLOCK NUMBER: 3            NUMREC: 1          !
> +------------------------------------------------+
>
>         **error** Tape command failed. SYSGEN tape is NO GOOD!
>
> After trying multiple tapes in both drives (which are both SCSI attached),
> and rebooting the drives/system several times, it just seems that I am
> sunk.
> Both drives are OLD, and are configured as HPC1521B.  I have used them in
> the distant past, and they are OK.
>
> Wyell Grunwald
>
> * To join/leave the list, search archives, change list settings, *
> * etc., please visit http://raven.utc.edu/archives/hp3000-l.html *
>


-- 

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GSA Inc.
HP System Administration Specialists
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* etc., please visit http://raven.utc.edu/archives/hp3000-l.html *