From owner-freebsd-questions Mon Mar 20 21:53:36 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from ux.accesscom.net (ux.accesscom.net [204.181.176.2]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 3122A37BC9F for ; Mon, 20 Mar 2000 21:53:32 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from mlistbsd@icorp.net) Received: from no1-164.internet8.net(204.181.188.164) by ux(smtpd 2.1.2) with SMTP id smtp021485; Mon, 20 Mar 00 23:53:14 -0600 Message-ID: <38D70DC7.9BC24961@icorp.net> Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2000 23:51:03 -0600 From: James X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.72 [en] (Win98; U) X-Accept-Language: en Mime-Version: 1.0 To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: tar i/o errors Content-Length: 1294 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG I'm running a Seagate/Archive 4mm dat drive and recently I've started getting input/output errors when trying to do a backup (using tar). I've inserted cleaning tapes several times and this doesn't seem to help. I even purchased a brand new tape (though the existing tapes are all relatively new) and it still hasn't helped. 1. Any ideas what is wrong? Someone suggestion the heads needed to be demagnetized but I've also heard that this is probably not necessary - I can't find any tools to address the situation other than a cleaning tape, and the drive is NOT used very much. 2. Is there a way to force tar to continue even if it encouters an error? Right now it aborts the backup entirely - it would be nice at least if it could continue provided there wasn't some sort of cascade failure. Every time I run the backup, it stops at a different point. I know this can be done during restore/reading with the --ignore... option but what about writing? 3. Is there any alternative software which is more reliable or has more comprehensive error checking? And is just as easy to use as tar in doing restores? I like using tar with z compression best - but the drive so can't seem to perform a reliable backup and it's driving me crazy. Any advice would be greatly appreciated! To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message