topic Re: Tape eject from command prompt!!! in Operating System - HP-UX

Tape eject from command prompt!!!

Yogesh M Puranik — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 00:35:27 GMT

Hi all,

How to eject the tape from command prompt in HP-UX?? my tape has been stuck inside the tape drive and not coming out by pressing the eject buttion.

Rgds
Yogi

Re: Tape eject from command prompt!!!

Dennis Handly — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 00:47:14 GMT

If the mechanism is jammed mt(1) may not help:
mt -f tape-device offl

Re: Tape eject from command prompt!!!

Yogesh M Puranik — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 00:58:16 GMT

Hi Dennis,

Well i ve tried this option already but it is showing device busy!!

gjprod # mt -f /dev/rmt/0mnb offl
/dev/rmt/0mnb: Device busy

rgds

Yogi

Re: Tape eject from command prompt!!!

Steven Schweda — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 12:41:23 GMT

> /dev/rmt/0mnb: Device busy

Can you get fuser or lsof to tell you who's
using the device? (You might need to check
all the related devices, too.)

Re: Tape eject from command prompt!!!

Jeeshan — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 15:39:46 GMT

Hi

try this

#mt â t /dev/rmt/Xmn offl

Re: Tape eject from command prompt!!!

Bill Hassell — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 00:57:27 GMT

If the front panel button does not work, the mt comand will not work either (as you have seen). Hold down the eject button for more than 30 seconds. If this does not work, the tape has become tangled inside and cannot be repaired in the field (tolerances are too tight) so you'll need HP service to replace the drive.

Re: Tape eject from command prompt!!!

Suraj K Sankari — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 03:43:18 GMT

Hi,
If your drive path is /dev/rmt/0mn
then give

#mt off

it is in different path then

#mt /dev/rmt/1mn off

Suraj

Re: Tape eject from command prompt!!!

Torsten. — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 04:28:21 GMT

This likely indicates a hardware problem with the drive. Try to power cycle the tape drive and try again.

This may not solve the problem, but likely you are able to eject the tape.

Re: Tape eject from command prompt!!!

Steven Schweda — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 14:10:43 GMT

How would bad hardware cause "Device busy"?

> Hold down the eject button [...]

Might this not depend on the type of tape
drive? Has anyone said which kind of tape
drive this is?

Re: Tape eject from command prompt!!!

Torsten. — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 14:13:22 GMT

How would bad hardware cause "Device busy"?

Another process (a backup) could hang and never come back ... this can keep the device "busy".

Check with fuser.

Re: Tape eject from command prompt!!!

Bill Hassell — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 20:11:20 GMT

> How would bad hardware cause "Device busy"?

The hardware is trying but it cannot complete the operation internally (the tape is jammed). So the driver can't get back any response and is therefore busy. Unfortunately there is no way to tell whether it is busy with a program or busy internally. Stuck tapes are not uncommon in older drives or drives that have been heavily used and not cleaned regularly. If you could look inside, the tape has likely wrapped itself around the recording head or drive rollers.

Re: Tape eject from command prompt!!!

Steven Schweda — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 21:51:02 GMT

> Unfortunately there is no way to tell [...]

Yow. Ask me why I still use VMS. With a
SHOW DEVICE /FULL command, I can see which
process owns the tape drive, and what it's
doing. And if I do it twice, I can see if
the "Operations completed" count is stuck or
rising.

And the device driver can be expected to
throw an error if the tape gets stuck, too.
Please pardon my incredulity if a gross
hardware error really can't be detected as
such on an HP-UX system.

Re: Tape eject from command prompt!!!

Dennis Handly — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 04:39:48 GMT

>Steven: Please pardon my incredulity if a gross hardware error really can't be detected as such on an HP-UX system.

Using STM or some such may detect it?
Also there is "mt -f tape-device status".

Re: Tape eject from command prompt!!!

Cesare Salvioni — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 13:27:08 GMT

hi,

try using st command, usefull for shared tape

Try the following commands:
st -f /dev/rmt/0m -s to see the status
st -f /dev/rmt/0m -r to reclaim the tape

Not sure it would work, but i think it worth a try, you cannot do more damages :-)

hope it helps

Re: Tape eject from command prompt!!!

Yogesh M Puranik — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 08:32:31 GMT

closed