I'm trying to restore data from LTO-3 tapes written by a Tandberg TS800 LTO-3 drive, but since the original drive is now underwater (literally!) I'm trying to read them on an IBM LTO-3 drive. But they won't read. If I eject and reinsert the tape then about every fourth time the IBM drive will read the tape label and see it as a valid backup tape, but any attempt to restore data produces an error.
The tapes were backing up fine in the Tandberg, and we have done restores from them with the Tandberg drive so I'm confident the Tandberg drive was fine (before it got flooded). I'm not 100% sure about the IBM drive since it's out of our stores and it was last used 18 months ago, but I've no reason to think it's faulty.
Surely there shouldn't be any problem moving a tape between different LTO-3 drives. I recall problems with DDS-3 drives, though even those were pretty rare. I'm trying to source a Tandberg drive to try that, but in the mean time can anyone suggest what might be wrong and how to fix it? Is it most likely that my spare IBM drive is faulty or have other people seen problems moving tapes between differet LTO-3 drives?
Any suggestions gratefully received!
John Rennie
Best Answer
The first thing i would suggest is to run a cleaning tape through it at least once - possibly twice it'd bet there is a decent amount of dust on the tape heads. Which would cause symptoms like what you are describing.
Also have you tried a different tape? There might be somethign wrong with the tape.
Are there any logs on the backup machine as far as scsi errors?