DL380 g4 / Win 2003 cannot see DAT72 / SCSI

[steve blomeley]

Summary of problem
==================
We have 2 DL380 g4 servers, each connected to an external DAT72 tape drive via SCSI. Although the tape drives are visible to the server during bootup, they are NOT visible from within Windows Server. It appears that the driver for the DAT tape drive is not loaded, but it does not seem possible to load the relevant driver.

Any ideas?

Details
=======
Servers are HP Proliant DL380 G4, O/S is Windows Server 2003, Enterprise Edition, Build 3790. In each server, the SCSI interface is configured in Embedded Simplex mode, making it possible to connect external SCSI devices via the port on the back of the server.

There are 2 HP StorageWorks DAT 72 tape drives (HP Part No. DW009 – 60005). These are located in an HP StorageWorks 1U Tape Enclosure. One tape drive is connected to each of the servers via a SCSI cable.

Symptoms
1) During bootup
The external tape drive is detected : If we run the "Option ROM Configuration for Arrays" utility during bootup, then select Configure ODBR from the main menu, the tape drive is listed as a C7438A on SCSI port 1 (this is the external SCSI port on the server) with the correct SCSI LUN.

2) From Windows Server
Under Windows Device Manager, there are no tape devices listed

The System Survey feature of the HP Insight Diagnostics tool does not list the tape drive – The floppy, DVD and hard drives are all correctly listed

Scan the server using HP StorageWorks Library and Tape Tools, v4.5 – This finds the internal hard drives, but not the external tape drives. Running the System Config Utility from the Utilities menu informs us that the DAT driver is not installed. Same result from running the Library & Tape Tools Installation Check.

Running the Windows driverquery utility does not list any tape drivers as being installed on the system

The DAT tape driver file (hpdat.sys) is not in C:\Windows\System32\Drivers

3) Attempt to install DAT tape driver using HP installer
Installed driver from the HP StorageWorks DAT tape drives CDROM. This claims to have successfully installed the driver. However the external tape drive is still not visible to the O/S (even after rebooting) – Same symptoms as in section 2 above.

(4) Attempt to install DAT tape driver manually
Used the Install New Hardware wizard – This reaches the point where you are prompted to give the location of the folder containing the drivers. At this point, an “empty list” of available drivers is displayed. It is not possible to proceed as no driver can be selected for installation.


Can anybody shed any light on this problem? Thanks in advance for your help...

[Víctor Cespón · Accepted solution]

1) You're connecting the DAT drive to the embedded Smart Array 6i on the server. Although the 6i is supposed to support tape drives it is always recommended to use a non-RAID SCSI controller
2) By setting the server SCSI backplane to simplex, you are putting the drive on the same channel as the disks. This is not supported and you can end with two devices having the same SCSI ID (disks use 0 - 5, DATs by default use 3)
3) Driver for DAT (needed for MSbackup utility) here: ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/tape/TapeDrv/DATTapeDriverInstaller.zip

From 3 years experience with hundreds of customers, tapes work much better when connected to a non-RAID SCSI controller. I've seen very few cases of a tape connected to a SmartArray.

[steve blomeley]

Thanks for the reply - It's the first time I've set up any Proliant servers, so it's nice to hear from an old hand...

In light of your advice, we're going to :

(1) Revert the SCSI backplane in the servers to duplex mode (I assume this will get us better performance from the disks)

...and...

(2) Add a non-RAID PCI-X SCSI card to each server (the HP SC11Xe looks like a suitable candidate) and connect this to the DAT 72 drive

Hope that sounds like a more sensible configuration.

I'll post a final reply when(if!) we get everything working...

[steve blomeley]

...having said that, I just noticed the following line on page 14 of HP's "DAT SCSI Tape Drives User Guide"

http://bizsupport.austin.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/c01087003/c01087003.pdf

"Do not attach the drive to the same SCSI bus as your disk drive or to a RAID controller (unless you are connecting to a ProLiant server with a SmartArray 6i RAID controller)."

This last part seems to conflict with the advice (found both here and in other forum postings) to *never* connect a tape device to a SCSI RAID controller, especially one that already has disks attached. Can anyone clarify this issue?

[Víctor Cespón]

Yes, as I told you on previous post, Smart Array 6i and other SCSI SmartArrays are listed as possible controllers for tape drives, but from experience with customers, it's always better to use a non-RAID controller.
At least have it on a separate channel. On the same channel, the traffic for the disks will interfer with the traffic for the DAT, forcing it to stop and start the tape continouslly, this makes the backups slower and induces more wear and tear on the drive.

[steve blomeley]

I installed a non-RAID SCSI card into each server (374654-B21 - Single channel Ultra320 SCSI HBA G2). Rebooted, and the tape drives were available & working under Windows. Result!
Thanks for your advice.

[Shavqat]

I have the same problem as described above. Can you show me how i can check either the interface is siplex or duplex and how i can reverse
it.

[steve blomeley]

Try reading the manual : http://bizsupport.austin.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/c00687567/c00687567.pdf

Or the instructions printed on the reverse of the server's lid.

[Shavqat]

But there is written that "The specific configuration does not support external VHDCI" through which i have connected external tape drive.

[steve blomeley]

Read the advice from VCESPON in the previous posts - It is strongly recommended NOT to connect a tape drive to the external SCSI port. We installed a seperate non-RAID SCSI dedicated to the tape drive - that works just fine.