MAINTENANCE AND SERVICING M2488 PRODUCT GUIDE
8-30 CG00000-011503 REV. A April 1997
8-6 ERROR RE COVERY PROCEDUR ES
The IDENTIFY message is used by the initiator or target to establish the physical path between the ini-
tiator and target for a specific logical unit. Bit 6 of the IDENTIFY message is defined as follows:
Bit 6: When the in itiator se ts this bit to a one, the ini tiator al lows discon nect. If th e initiato r sets this bit
to a zero, the initiator does not allow disconnect. When the target performs a disconnect/reconnect
sequence, an implied RESTORE POINTERS operation is performed by the initiator. This results in all
data for the command being retransmitted from the initiator unless the target has issued a SAVE DATA
POINTER message prior to disconnection.
The target always sets bit 6 to zero during reconnection.
If an error occurs during data transfer, the target is automatically restored to the beginning of data.
8-6.1 EDRC Error Recovery
Certain errors during EDRC operation are recoverable. This category of errors occurs during data
transfer and requires the data to be re-transmitted in order to record the data on tape. Included in this
category are the following related errors:
Initiator record expands past 451 KB during compaction process.
Initiator record expanded past the available buffer space.
Hardware error occurred. (e.g. timeouts, compression/decompression errors, etc.)
8-6.2 Retry Methods
There are four retry methods the target is capable of using to recover the above errors:
1. Automatic retry from the internal retry buffer for blocks up to 64 kB (65,536 bytes)
2. Explicit Restore Pointers
3. Disconnect/reconnect with an implied Restore Pointers
4. Aborted Command
The above methods are tried in order as determ ined by the initiator (MESSAGE REJECT message or
IDENTIFY message).
The error recovery for the first method is performed internally within the target. This retry method
can be disabled via feature mode 1, bit 0 (0x01), using the CHANGE DEFINITION command, or
from the operator pane l SETTING menu, option 77:S.FT1 (refer to the User’s Guide, Chapter 4).
The error recovery for the second and third methods is completed when the host restores the data
pointers and retransmits the data.
The error recovery following an aborted command is completed when the host reissues the WRITE
command for the failing data.
For all four retry methods, the target performs the first retry in the same data compression mode as
the original data transfer. For any additional retries, the target automatically switches to reblocking
in non-compacted mode. The target automatically switches back to the mode defined prior to the
error after the retry is successful or after the third retry has failed and a permanent error has been
reported to the initiator.
If the initiator does not support the restore pointers mechanism for error recovery, the initiator must
reject the RESTORE POINTERS message with the MESSAGE REJECT message.
If the initiator does not support the disconnect/reconnect mechanism for error recovery, the initiator
must not allow the target to disconnect via the IDENTIFY message.
If the initiator does not support both the RESTORE POINTERS message and disconnect/reconnect,
the target can be configured to not perform these retry methods. The target is configured by setting