Thank you for the explaination.

However, what does it all mean ?   Why do I get error message that try to
address 20-different possibilities of reasons for some failure, that I am
not sure I am having ?

What does it all mean  to me ?

Should I just call IBM and have them come figure it out ?      The last
time I did that, all IBM did was talk me through simple troubleshooting
(unplug drive from slot a - plug it into slot b - did that make the
problem go away......no, bad drive - we will send you a new one.......you
plug it in) !  While I don't mind this to a point (I get my hand dirty,
all the time), there is a point beyond simple troubleshooting that someone
more techincally intimate with the equipment needs to address !



"ADSM: Dist Stor Manager" <ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU> wrote on 04/20/2004
07:42:21 AM:

> >My AIX TSM server (5.2.2.3) just spewed the following error messages.
> >
> >Talk about schizophrenic/indecisive !!!!!!!!!!!!!!
> >
> >What gives ?  All I was doing is a DB backup. Just inserted and
> >initialized this tape. The init went fine.
> >
> >This is an IBM 3583-L72 with 2-LTO2 drives.
> >
> >*********************************************
> >
> >04/19/04 15:34:18     ANR8950W Device /dev/rmt3, volume 090000 has
issued
> >the following Warning TapeAlert: The operation has stopped be cause an
> >error has occurred while reading or writing data which the drive cannot
> >correct. (SESSION: 5496, PROCESS: 17)
> ...
>
> You will find TapeAlert summarized in the IBM 358x Setup and Operator
Guide
> manuals, with flag values.
>
> TapeAlert is a patented technology and standard of the American National
> Standards Institute (ANSI) that defines conditions and problems that are
> experienced by tape drives. The technology enables a server to read
TapeAlert
> flags from a tape drive through the SCSI interface.
> The LTO Ultrium tape drives incorporate such alerts.
> TSM is merely responding to the spew coming from the tape drive.
>
> Looks like we've gone from the obscurant extreme of sense bytes to a
> profusion of textual possibilities regarding tape errors.  Perhaps some
> day we'll get succinct messages saying "Here's what's wrong...".
> Better yet, perhaps IBM's Autonomic Computing initiative
> (www.ibm.com/autonomic) will some day come to its tape technology and
> fix problems itself.
>
>    Richard Sims   http://people.bu.edu/rbs