MSL5026 SDLT Drive System says "Offline" when trying to access

[Brian Akey]

I have an MSL5026 with SDLT2 tape drive, attached to an ES45, that the leader came off of and so the tape drive was offline for several days.

We repaired the tape leader on the drive and now the library will load and unload tapes from the control panel without issue. However, when the tapes are loaded the drive status shows "Un'loaded" insteadof idle like it used too.

Also, from the VMS system the (VMS 8.3) a "show dev/full " show the device is online. But when I actually try to access the device to do a backup/list of the tape contents or mount the tape I get the error:

%MOUNT-I-OPRQST, medium is offline
%MOUNT-I-OPRQST, Please mount device _ROCK45$MKB100:

I've tried IO Autoconfig in SYSMAN and even an IO Rebuild followed by and IO Autoconfig with the same results.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

[marsh_1]

brian,

do you have the controller gk device present ?
there is another current thread that has some info early on that might be useful

http://forums11.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=1298550

hope this helps

[Brian Akey]

Thanks for the quick response. No the system doesn't have a "gk" device installed. Also to clarify, I simply use the VMS backup utility and write directly to the MK device. We load the first tape manually and just use the library for sequental tapes if the backup takes more than one.

[Steven Schweda]

> [...] a "show dev/full " show
> the device is online.

This mostly tells you that there's a driver
loaded, and that the system can talk to the
SCSI adapter, not that it can actually talk
to the device.

Did you replace all the cables? Did you
change the SCSI ID somehow?

> I've tried IO Autoconfig in SYSMAN [...]

Did any new MK devices appear?
SHOW DEVICE MK

If it's convenient, you might shut down the
system and see what appears at the console.

[marsh_1]

are you able to reboot the es45 ?

[Brian Akey]

It's modular so all we did was pull the drive out and fix the leader issue and plug the drive back in. Didn't have to unplug any external cables at all. Didn't change the SCSI ID and the system still sees the same device and only that MK device, no new ones popped up when I did the autoconfig.

Unfortunately it's our hospitals main information system, so I can't shut it down right now. But I'm concerned that the issue isn't on the server side but either the drive it self or some kind of config issue with the library since the tapes show unloaded after being loaded and the drive doesn't go to a status of "Idle" like it used too.

[cnb]

Hi Brian,

BA> "But I'm concerned that the issue isn't on the server side but either the drive it self or some kind of config issue with the library since the tapes show unloaded after being loaded and the drive doesn't go to a status of "Idle" like it used too."

I suspect that it *could* be a little of both on the system side (VMS UCB issues...) and the library (Unloaded).

BA> "It's modular so all we did was pull the drive out and fix the leader issue and plug the drive back in."

Did you perform the drive replacement routine, which deactivates the drive, using the MSL menu prior to pulling the drive and replacing the leader?

FWIW, anything in the Library Error Log? Reboot the library? Physical Drive Status windows the same for both units?

You might try to perform a drive replacement and/or then force reconfiguration through the front panel menu and rerun auto all/log and see if it shakes loose.

-or-

If you can't reboot the system and really need to access the drive, you *could* change the SCSI ID for the drive through the front panel and then do Auto All/log and use the new drive ID until the system can be rebooted. But this method usually isn't preferable as your tape apps may have to be modified to use the new SCSI (MKyx) ID number, code changes, etc..

Just a thought or two or three. ;)

hth,

[Volker Halle]

Brian,

the error reported is 'medium is offline', so it really must be some problem with accessing the media (i.e. tape cassette). Nothing wrong with accessing the tape device itself. This is supported by the fact, that the library also does not show the cassette as loaded.

You should try to fix the problem at the library, not trying to fix this with an OpenVMS reboot.

Volker.