Path: utzoo!utgpu!cunews!bnrgate!brchh104!brchs1!bnr.ca!rice.edu!sun-spots-request
From: adw@isg.cs.reading.ac.uk (Anthony Worrall)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun
Subject: Exabyte Tape Errors
Keywords: No Digest Subjects in Unmoderated Mode
Message-ID: <3421@brchh104.bnr.ca>
Date: 4 Jun 91 18:40:00 GMT
Sender: news@brchh104.bnr.ca
Organization: Sunspots, Psuedo-Unmoderated
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Approved: sun-spots@rice.edu
X-Original-Date:    Tue, 21 May 91 17:38:39 BST

We have beening doing dumps onto an Exabyte connected to a 4/380 under 
SUNOS 4.1.1 rev B using Sony QG-112M tapes. Recently we have started to 
get write errors with the error message 

	st1:  write failed
	st1 error:  sense key(0x5): illegal request


This error message seems to be tape dependent and has occurred on the Exabyte
tape supplied with the drive as well as the Sony tapes. I had the Sun engineer
in and we changed the drive the cables and finally the CPU board which seemed
to cure the problem, but now it is back again. 

Cleaning the Exabyte does not have any effect. I have occasionly used 
TDK P5-90EHG tapes without any problem but they have not seen much re-use.

Does anyone know what is causing the problem and what the cure might be.

Cheers

Anthony.Worrall@Reading.ac.uk