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From: versatc!tran@sun.com (Tony Tran)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun
Subject: What does "Bad Command Synchronization" mean ?
Keywords: Hardware
Message-ID: <8903300207.AA25177@versatc.UUCP>
Date: 7 Apr 89 06:05:31 GMT
Sender: usenet@rice.edu
Organization: Versatec Corp. (A XEROX Company)
Lines: 40
Approved: Sun-Spots@rice.edu
Original-Date: Wed, 29 Mar 89 18:07:37 PDT
X-Sun-Spots-Digest: Volume 7, Issue 227, message 9 of 15

Yesterday morning when I came in to work, I found 2 out of 3 tape drives
no longer work. The error messages are:

xt0: lost interrupt
xt0: hard error bn=0 er=4
xt: bad command synchronization
xt: bad command synchronization
xt0: stray interrupt
xt0: hard error bn=0 er=16
xt0: hard error bn=0 er=16
xt0: hard error bn=0 er=16

I am able to back up some small partitions, like root, /pub, but no longer
back up 100 MB+ partitions, because the dump will abort after about 15%
completion or sooner. 

I have put a service call to SUN, and am waiting for them to call me back.
In the meantime, no daily backup or weekly backup.

I recall seeing this mentioned somewhere in the net, but I just cannot
remember all the gory details about it. It has something to do with a fix
from SUN or something. 

Has anybody seen this kind of errors? 
Any hint/advise would be appreciated.

Tony Tran
Versatec Corp.

PS: Yes, I did clean the tape head many times. And yes, I did use
various brands of tapes, including brand new tapes too.

These are SUN servers 3/160; 3/180 with original SUN equipments (Super
Eagle 2361k and tape drive I believe from Fujitsu (?).  We did manage to
add a couple of M2372k Swallow disks on these.  They are running SUN OS
3.4  if it helps any.)

UUCP: {sun,ames,pyramid}!versatc!tran  	Tony Tran
ARPA: tran@arisia.xerox.com 
Versatec, 2805 Bowers Avenue, Santa Clara, Calif 95051 (408)982-4317