What a terrible coincidence!

My tape drive seems to have failed as well. It started to make a very
loud and awful noise, and gave the error

Feb 20 22:50:50 pilvi vmunix: st0 error:  sense key(0x3): media error,
error code(0x11): hard data error

three times, once writing. I had just succesfully dumped / and /usr and
was trying to re-create the NetBSD install tape on a 60MB tape instead
of the 45MB I had made earlier. When writing the files on the tape, the
drive screamed several times, then stopped altogether as if something
stuck. I tested many other tapes with just "mt ret", including the ones
I dumped to, all screamed and got stuck. I think the drive is dirty
somewhere and something is slipping, judging by the noise. I haven't
opened the thing up yet.

I think it must be just a coincidence though and hasn't got anything to
do with NetBSD.

Jari Kokko