  Meaning of PARITY (Hardware) Error? 
 The Question is:
 
DEC 2000 Model 300         OpenVMS V7.1-1H2
MKA600: ARCHIVE Python 28388-XXX
 
Are there any VMS reasons, besides bad hardware, that I might get this error?
 
The tape drive, tapes and system motherboard have been replaced, to no avail.
 
Attempting to run backup/image, the log shows this error:
 
Allocate, initializing and mount Tape Drive MKA600:
 
%DCL-I-ALLOC, _TRAINO$MKA600: allocated
%INIT-F-PARITY, parity error
 
Thanks,
   Chris
 
 The Answer is :
 
  Parity errors are typically hardware errors, either with the host,
  the I/O bus (length, termination, addressing, etc), the device, or
  the media.  Please contact your hardware service organization for
  assistance with this.
 
  If this is a question of tape recovery, please consider a data
  recovery service -- please do be careful not to wear the media
  more than necessary, as that can hinder recovery.
 
  Your OpenVMS release is dated, and is no longer supported.  You
  will want to upgrade to a more recent (and supported) release.
 
  From HELP/MESSAGE PARITY
...
 
                If this message is associated with a status code returned
                by a request to a magnetic tape driver, one or more of the
                following conditions can cause this error:
 
                  Attempt to read beyond the logical end of volume (possibly
                  caused by a missing or overwritten tape mark)
                  Control bus parity error
                  Correctable data error (PE only)
                  Correctable skew (PE only)
                  CRC error (NRZI only)
                  Data bus parity error
                  Format error (PE only)
                  Invalid tape mark (NRZI only)
                  Longitudinal parity error (NRZI only)
                  Map parity error
                  MASSBUS control parity error
                  MASSBUS data parity error
                  Nonstandard gap
                  Read data substitute
                  Uncorrectable error (PE only)
                  Vertical parity error (NRZI only)
 
                  PE = 9-track, 1600-BPI, phase-encoded tape
 
                  NRZI = 9-track, 800-BPI, nonreturn-to-zero inverted tape
 
 
 Answer written or last revised on  9-MAR-2004 
