Tape Drive not recognized on dl585/linux

[Greg Traud_2]

Hi,
I've recently acquired a used dl585.
Hot swap devices are two 73gig disk drives and a 72gig hot swap tape drive.
I'm running CentOS 4.3 in 64bit mode.

When I loaded the OS, I was concerned that I couldn't see the tape drive. I read in several messages on the internet that if the hot swap disks were configured in a RAID setup (they are striped), that the scsi drivers may not be 'smart' enough to enable the tape drive too, and that a separate scsi controller had to be installed to operate the tape drive. I've done this.
I've installed an Adaptec ASC-29320ALP U320 controller, connected to the scsi backplane, with the backplane set for duplex. Still no joy.

The server sees the Adaptec controller, but I get no tape drive in the /dev directory.

Please let me know what else I can supply to be of assistance.

Greg

[NMory · Accepted solution]

Greg:

Have you tried with only one tape drive at a time???

You should be connecting the drives in bays 0 and 1 and the tape drives in bays 2 and 3. You should set the SCSI switch to duplex.

Also remember that the SCSI Channel A controls bays 0 and 1, and Channel B controls 2 and 3. If you look the server from the back, and check the SCSI backplane, Channel A is in your left hand side and Channel B is in your right hand side.

What is the model of the tape drives?

LN

[Greg Traud_2]

I've figured this out...
I needed to install the kernel driver 'st' with: modprobe st
and bounce the machine.

The one tape drive that is mounted on the machine is working great now.

Greg

[Greg Traud_2]

I've figured this out...
First, I installed the adaptec scsi controller, and set the simplex/duplex switch to duplex. This switch is located on the drive backplane.
Then, I needed to boot the box, and configure the new scsi controller via kudzu. Once done, I needed to install the kernel driver 'st' with: modprobe st
and bounce the machine again. I guess I'm not used to having to bounce a linux box so many times.

The one tape drive that is mounted on the machine is working great now.

Greg