AIX

I have 2 workstations that when I do the smitty lsmksysb to verify the tape created by the smitty mksysb, both fail on the same problem:

restore: 0511-119 There is a missing header block.
restore: 0511-137 Trying to find the next header. Data maybe lost.
Starting again at file ....

I googled this and it is not clear if it is a tape/device/memory problem.

To have a successful lsmksysb, I am currently trying with different tapes, then different cables, ...

AIX 4.2 workstations

Try using a cleaning tape and the problem might go away. On the other hand, tape drives close to the end of their life cycle tend to (erroneously) report their read/rwite-heads to need cleaning. It might also be that the tape drive is near to being broken.

I hope this helps.

bakunin

But with those tape drive (external ones), I managed to do at least 30 different backups last week and only these 2 servers had this problem, the exact same problem. Also, the problem also happens when I smitty lsmksysb those backups on other servers where I also did at least 30 backups last week and where also, I had no other tapes having this problem from other servers.

So it seams to be isolated to tapes being backed up on those 2 specific servers.

So far I tried :
- cleaning + re-doing the mksysb: the smitty lsmksysb of those 2 backups failed on that problem
- using different tapes + re-doing the mksysb : the smitty lsmksysb of those 2 backups failed on that problem
- using different tapes + different tape drive cables + re-doing the mksysb : did not have time to verity them as it was the end of my shift but I will reply back here with the results

I also find it odd that every times I had this same exact problem on mksysb tapes done on those 2 specific servers is that it fails when backing up some /dev/something folders and both says it is restarting after /etc/magic. Why restarting at that specific location on both servers at every times ??? What is so special with that /etc/magic folder ?

Tonight I did an lsmksysb of those 2 new tapes (with new cables) and tape#1 of them had an OK status. Since tape#2 failed I put in into the same drive as the one I used for tape#1 and re-did the lsmksysb. It went OK too. I had cleaned both drives before usage.

Either the tapes were fussy (wear and tear) or the drives I used were dirty.

At one time I had used those same drives (on different servers and not those external drives I used to do the mksysb) to verify the first attemps but they had failed. Now tonight they worked ok.

By the way, I got it wrong. It was not /etc/magic for both failures. One was restarting at /etc/magic and the other at /etc/motd

Thx for your help.