Tape driver issue

[techman1974]

I just installed a ultrium SCSI 320 HBA card into a DL380 G4 server running windows 2008r2 64 bit. Clean install!. Also connected to a HP 1/8 auto tape loader ultruim 920.
-Installed the tapeloader driver
-updated Latest firmware on the tape driver

The issue that i am having is that everytime i connect the tape drive and restart the server, the Windows OS continues to loop during the bootup process. In order for me to stop the loop i disconnected the tape drive and windows starts boot up to the log on page.

I have a stronge feeling that the scsi card that is causing this issue or ID of the scsi card.
I changed the Scsi card ID to 5 4 and 7 on both the the server and tapeloader with No luck.

Is there something I am missing or over looking? Please help!!!

[Patrick Terlisten · Accepted solution]

Hello,

your setup should work. Can you replace the SCSI HBA? Are all devices correctly terminated?

Regards,
Patrick

[Marino Meloni_1]

first of all it would be interesting to know where the sustem is looping...
during post? (you can check if the new HBA is the pimary boot option, or disable the Bios)
or when the OS is already loaded, or when the drives are beeing loaded? (in this case you can try to boot in Safe mode)

The scsi card id should always be 7, this to avoid the conflict with the devices you will attach to it

You can also try to change the slot you inserted the SCSI HBA, this will also change the priority usually as the slots are scanned in a hard coded sequence

[techman1974]

Thank you for your response.
Patrick
yes everything is terminated.
I left the Scsi ID to 7 on both the loader and HP server.

Marino:
How can i check to see if the HBA is the primary boot option? Every time i see the server boot up it first shows the smart controller then,it recognizes the scsi card.
After that it show a list of my devices multiple times. (never saw that before) Once that is done, the server attempt to boot up to the OS. it loops at the point where you see the microsoft progress bar.
At this point i remove the scsi cable and the OS boots up normally.

Here is another thing!
when i plug the scsi cable back to the server after boot up it recognizes the tape drive and unknown medium changer on the device manager. IT SHOWS that i have 7 of each devices plugged in.

any ideas?

[Uwe Zessin]

> I left the Scsi ID to 7 on both the loader and HP server.

That is an address conflict.
Move the loader to a different free address.

> IT SHOWS that i have 7 of each devices plugged in.

But you don't, have you?
That's a good sign of a configuration problem,
e.g. duplicate SCSI addresses.

[techman1974]

KAPLOWW!!!!
Im up
Performed the following after talking to HP.
- they suspected that the terminator or scsi cable was bad, Swapped both. (Thank you HP care Pack)
- I still recieved the multiple devices in device manager and Bios. UGH!!
- HP wanted me to use another server, (NOT)
- After seeing that the bios still detected multiple device and the device manager as well, I changed the Scsi ID on the tape loader to the default ID of 4 and left the Scsi ID on the server to 7.
Restarted the device and Server and realized that the bios only saw one device. (Good)
- the loop stopped and booted up to the OS. (feeling better)
- Looked at device manager and i saw the one unknown medium changer and one tape driver.
Problem solved.
- Keep in mind that HP wanted to keep the tape loader and scsci card IDs to the same. Sometime that is not the answer,

Things to consider.
- Make sure that the firmware on the tape drive is up to date as well as the correct driver.
- The Tape driver is on its own dedicated scsi card.
- and the scsi Id. unfortunately, you have to play around with it.


Thank you all for your input. You guys rock!!