How do I boot from (make_recovery) tape ?

[Sridhar Bhaskarla]

I think you need to verify if the tape was created successfully as you are not able to find the boot area on it.

I assume your system is still up and running.
As you used C option, do a quick check by running check_recovery.

Also you can find out if the boot area is properly copied on the tape by using copy_boot_tape

#/opt/ignite/bin/copy_boot_tape -u /dev/rmt/??n -b -d /your_directory

This should successfully dump the boot area called boot_image in your_directory

Also verify if everything is fine on the tape by doing

#mt -t /dev/rmt/0mn fsf 1
#tar tvf /dev/rmt/0mn

If everything is fine, then the system shouldn't have any problem finding it as a bootable media.

-Sri

[Marco Varenkamp]

Hi Sridar,
I've checked the tape. I think the tape is fine. (I have attached a log file of the copy_boot_tape command)
The tar archive could be read also.

The tape device I use is a HP6400/2000.
Is it possible that it is not compatible?
regards
Marco

[John Waller]

Marco,

Searching through the HP site I found a previous question regarding connecting a HP6400 Tape drive to a C110 workstation. It mentioned that the HP6400 was a FWSCSI tape drive. If this is the case then you may have a problem that the F/W interface is not initialised at system startup so will not support any drives connected as bootable devices. This is only a guess, but perhaps somebody with a bether hardware knoledge of the HP6400 or the C3700 Work Station can confirm / deny this theory.

[Sachin Patel]

Hi Marco,
your dirve is FW-SCSI. Are you sure you have hook up that drive on correct (FW) port?

Sachin

[John Bolene]

Could be true.

We only use single-ended drives as we found that the FW drives could not be booted from.

Never figured out why, just found out what works and went with that solution.

[Sridhar Bhaskarla]

OK. I think this should be a firmware compatibiity issue where FW drives cannot be recognized. Since the tape has been successfully verified, I would suggest to try with a SingleEnded scsi drive if you have the interface.

-Sri

[Hendrik Schade]

Hello,

yes you are right, that's the way you boot from a tape device. The "sea" command should show you all scsi devices like disks, cd-drives and tape drives independent on the fact that they contain really boot medias. That means if the "sea" doesn't find your tape it seems to be a hardware problem and has nothing to do with the contents of the recovery tape. So you should check the SCSI connection, the tape drive itself, etc.

Hendrik

[Marco Varenkamp]

Hi,
the tape is a single-ended one.
I think that there is a hardware problem...