I have a single cartridge HP StorageWorks SDLT320 tape drive and I run BUExec 9. The last few batches of tapes that I’ve bought for this have had numerous occurrences of write errors (cyclic redundancy check). At first, I tried to buy another batch of tapes and tried using a different brand. I have tried Sony, which seemed to help a little, and Quantum, which helped not at all.
After a long struggle with HP tech support running all HP diagnostics, and running Windows drivers with the same errors, I finally got a new drive from HP about 3 months ago. I reinstalled the latest Veritas drivers for BUExec and things looked good for a while. About 3 tapes into a third new batch of tapes, the same errors started back up. I use a cleaning cartridge regularly.
Recently, I have tried recycling old tapes from a few years ago, and they seem to run fine.
I’m convinced that the tapes are bad. I have bought them from 2 different suppliers and bought 3 different brands. Comparing the different brands of tape, they are remarkably similar, right down to the lot number formats printed on them. This makes me believe that they are all manufactured by the same supplier to Sony, HP and Quantum. I haven’t been able to track down any improvement across lot numbers.
Has anyone else had similar problems? Any resolution? I’m a little reluctant to contact HP again because the replacement drive they send was accidentally shipped well after the old one had past warranty.
