[H-GEN] Backups etc...

[Craig Eldershaw]

[ Humbug *General* list - semi-serious discussions about Humbug and
Unix-related topics. ]

Hi Craig,

No answers, but a lot of questions...

Are your logs saying anything interesting just before the death ?  If
it is the tape drive, then SCSI errors (something major enough to crash
the system) may be listed.  Also, "crashed" is a bit vague.  Do you
mean it hangs permanently (while looking innocent) ?  Or do you get a
kernel panic (in which case, what is the message accompanying it) ?

If you happen to be sitting near the drive when it dies, then have to
noticed the state of the drive (writing, idle, rewinding) when it dies ?

How much are you backing up (roughly) compared to the capacity of your
tape ?  How far through does it make it ?  While the system isn't in
single-user mode, would there be active users ?  Creating large files ?

And SCSI being SCSI, do you have active termination and decent cables ?
Any other devices ever play up (even if you don't notice them, do a grep
of the logs - there may be some temporary timeouts being reported) ?
Any black chickens (or goats) readily availible ?

Cheers,
	Craig (another one).

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