I received this error after copying a MyISAM database from one server to another.

130715 15:21:14 [Note] Slave SQL thread initialized, starting replication in log 'mysqlhost-masterlog.XXXXXXXX' at position XXXXXX7, relay log '/log/binlog/relay-mysqlhostXXXXXX' position: XXXXXX
130715 15:21:14 [ERROR] Slave SQL: Error 'Got error -1 from storage engine' on query. Default database: 'db'. Query: 'UPDATE..., Error_code: 1030
130715 15:21:14 [Warning] Slave: Got error -1 from storage engine Error_code: 1030
130715 15:21:14 [ERROR] Error running query, slave SQL thread aborted. Fix the problem, and restart the slave SQL thread with "SLAVE START".

Suggestions from Google mentioned a full disk being a cause but this was not relevant in my case. Then I remembered I hadn’t executed a FLUSH TABLES. This is always sensible, if you’re not restarting MySQL, after messing about in the file system.

So after a simple;

FLUSH TABLES;

I could start the slave thread up happily.