topic Re: Tape Drive Recognition Problem in Operating System - HP-UX

Tape Drive Recognition Problem

Emil Henry — Mon, 10 Nov 2003 18:59:49 GMT

Hello!

I have 2 Sony AIT drives (AIT-1 and a AIT-2) that were working on a K200 and now moved to a K460. The drives are emulating DDS and when I do a ioscan they are claimed and under description it comes as "HP C1533A" (driver column is tape2). When I try to do a tar I get a "tar: cannot open /dev/rmt/1mn" and when I to a "mt -f /dev/rmt/1mn stat" I get a "no tape loaded" error even though there is a tape loaded. Both comamnds work fine on the other AIT drive.

Please advice.

Regards,

Emil

Re: Tape Drive Recognition Problem

A. Clay Stephenson — Mon, 10 Nov 2003 19:06:30 GMT

Well, the obvious answer is that one of the drives has now failed. It's also possible (and quite probable) that your problems are caused by bad termination. Surprisingly, a poorly terminated bus will almost work well -- the kind of problem that will drive you nuts. Make certain that the bus is terminated in exactly two places -- on the ends of the bus. It is possible that someone has removed the terminators from the controller; also make certain that the "Term Pwr" LED is on --- otherwise a fuse is blown on the controller.

Re: Tape Drive Recognition Problem

Michael Steele_2 — Mon, 10 Nov 2003 19:08:18 GMT

Bad tape drive.

If hot pluggable pull out and force back in with some muscle. Otherwise, its responding, just not correctly.

Do you have a copy of Library Tape Tools loaded? Best tape diagnostic if you want to pursue:

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareDescription.jsp?locale=en_US〈=English+%28US%29&pnameOID=257720&prodSeriesId=329866&prodTypeId=12169&basePartNum=COL1977&locBasepartNum=co-15160-1&os=HP-UX+11.x&tech=Diagnostic

Re: Tape Drive Recognition Problem

Emil Henry — Mon, 10 Nov 2003 21:55:23 GMT

Hello!

Thanks for the suggestions. I have an update. If I put the 2 tape drives on the Core I/O SCSI both work fine. When I put it on the HP-PB 16-bit differential SCSI card, only one works. Any thoughts?

Regards,

Emil

Re: Tape Drive Recognition Problem

Duncan Galbraith — Tue, 11 Nov 2003 18:37:34 GMT

Have you checked that the SCSI address on your second (not working) tape drive does not clash with something else on the same bus?

Re: Tape Drive Recognition Problem

Emil Henry — Tue, 11 Nov 2003 18:58:59 GMT

Duncan:

There is no conflict with regards to SCSI id's.

Regards,

Emil

Re: Tape Drive Recognition Problem

Duncan Galbraith — Tue, 11 Nov 2003 19:16:50 GMT

Ok, simple test: switch the 2 SCSI ID's on the tapes and see if its still the same one that works. This will show if its a problem with the hardware or the SCSI address used.

Re: Tape Drive Recognition Problem

Emil Henry — Tue, 11 Nov 2003 19:29:50 GMT

Hi Duncan!

The issue is that when I move them to the HSC cards both drives work fine. When they are on the HP-PB cards one of the drives does not work. I think that the drive will not work at all on the HP-PB cards, or the firmware is the problem. I have the new firmware for the HP-PB card, but cannot install it.

Regards,

Emil