In article <20010913112940.BDD7C1A6E@druid.net>,
	darcy@druid.net (D'Arcy J.M. Cain) writes:
> I have a system that I backup to using tar every day.  Every few days I
> start seeing the following message.
> 
> tar: can't write to /dev/tape : Input/output error

You should clean the drive with a cleaning tape and get a new set of
backup tapes.

> Has anyone else seen this?

Yes, my old Exabyte 8200 sometimes got suck like this if used with bad tapes.
This was with NetBSD-1.1 a long time ago.

> If I reboot the system it is OK again for another few days.

You reset the streamer with this. A "scsictl scsibus0 reset" would probably
be sufficient.

	Kind regards

-- 
Matthias Scheler                                  http://scheler.de/~matthias/