Problem with replacement LTO4 tapedrive.

[Shriniketan Bhagwat]

Hi,

After replacing LTO4 tapedrive in a MSL4048 library did you execute below commands?

MC sysman io list
MC sysman io find
MC sysman io Auto

OR

Mc sysman io replace /WWID


Regards,
Ketan

[P Muralidhar Kini]

Hi Brit,

The problem of hang when performing a tape backup can also happen
because of a faulty SCSI terminator.

Check the following link -
http://forums11.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=1426068

Here also a similar kind of problem was seen, wherein the backups hang
for a long period of time after which it had to be manually aborted.

Regards,
Murali

[The Brit]

First I would like to thank you all for your suggestions and assistance over the weekend.

I have not found a clear explanation for the cause of my original post (sad to say), but on the semi-good side, the problem may have gone away.

Summary of yesterday.

Arrived to find the library in the same state as Saturday, that is, Error LED On, Attention LED flashing, Clean LED On.

Steps performed.
1. Unloaded the Drive
2. Power Cycled the Library (Error LED now Out)
3. Run cleaning tape (Clean LED now Out)(Note:: this is second clean in 2 days, without a successful backup in between)

Attention LED is still flashing, and Library Status shows (!). Checked all of the slots and found one cassette with the (!) alongside. Removed this cassette from the Library and discarded.

Attention LED now Out, and Library status is good.

Incidentally, the cassette that I removed was one of those being used for testing over the weekend, and may have been the cause of many of the "Parity" and other errors. In retrospect, the "scratch" tapes which are kept in reserved slots in the library, and are used for automatic recovery when a "severe error" occurs in the backup job, have been in the library for close to 2 years. While the lifetime for tape media should be longer than that (5 years I believe), the age of the tapes may have been a contributing factor.

At ~9am yesterday I submitted a test of the failing backup, using this problem drive (Drive 1, MGA5), and it ran successfully to completion. In addition, the normally scheduled backup ran last night without any problems.

I am not totally conviced that I am off the hook yet, I will need a couple of days of success before I start to relax. The main problem being that I do not have a clear picture of what caused my problem, or what caused it to go away. I expect that I will have to just except the situation and move-on.

I just wish I had an explanation for the initial hang which occurred on Friday evening.

Oh Well!

Thanks again for your help.

Dave.