cp giving input/output error

[Campbell Smith, Peter]

I am trying to copy a file using cp, and cp consistently returns status 256 and 
error message 'input/output error'.  It also takes much longer than I would 
expect -- about 30 seconds -- and produces the error message at the end of that 
time.

The file being copied is in an smbfs-mounted directory. The file is about 
5Mbyte long and is a Microsoft Access database (R2M.mdb).  I can copy any other 
file from the directory without error messages.  

Although I get the error message, the file is copied correctly; the copied file 
is precisely the same length as the original and appears to be an exact copy.

I have tried copying it from its source directory to /dev/null and the behavior 
is exactly the same.  However, if I copy it to a native Linux folder (/tmp) I 
do get the error, but if I then copy it from /tmp, it copies without error in a 
fraction of a second.  So the problem would seem to be some interaction between 
cp and the smbfs file system.

I am using Linux from Debian release 3.1.  I previously used an ancient version 
of Linux to do this, and it worked without problems.

This is not a major problem in that the operation does work, but I'd rather not 
get the error message.

Thanks
Peter

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