help my dat24i stopped accepting cartridges

[Luke_9]

Hello.
Tonight at the toll of the end of the work day,
my HPDAT24i died.
NT4, Seagate Backup Exec (sw)
SCSI tape deck HPDAT24i,
RAID5,
It rejected a backup tape last nite,
I arrived t o find only a blinking amber light ( the "clean" light)
and the tape ejected.
I cleaned the drive and the blinking light stopped.
This is key-it looked fine according to thte magic lights...

Wont accept a tape today, tonight, after reboot and new HPtools, and cant unload a cartridge right away,
-tries to eject, then cant, and the tape heads go up,
then all over, 5 or 6 times before ejecting cartridge.
I only hit "eject" 1 time-10sec...

All device tests in HP Library&TapeTools say Drive passed,
only exception is the drive "may need calibration"
Cant run calibration script because I cant put a cartridge in.
Firmware is ok, L105, Even HP told me it was correct.

No lights at all...what could that be all about??

If I attach an external tape drive, can I some how with software make use of the SCSI controller, running the current internal drive?

Can I restore dat24i files from backup? try that?

Thank you
Suggestions?
Is attaching an external tape drive to the server considered a good quick fix without opening the box on Saturday!?

[BR642007 · Accepted solution]

Luke,

Looks like your tapedrive needs replacement.
Do you want to add the external tapedrive on the fly?
That means: with the server still running?

Please, don??t do that!!!

You can blow up your SCSI bus when hot plugging a non-hot-pluggable device like an external tape unit.

Just power down the server, if downtime is acceptable, remove the dat24i and connect your external tapedrive.
If??t it??s DDS3 or DDS4 you should be able to read the tapes you??ve created with the dat 24i.
DDS1 and DDS2 drives cannot.

Good luck!

Marco.

[Luke_9]

Thanks Marco.
Im now backing up across the NW to Win2000Server, on a DDS4, until I can get HW.
Do you think its possible to use that system(if I needed to)to restore NT4 across the NW?

10 points to you dude, right now!

[BR642007]

Luke,

You should be able to restore your NT4 server from a backup over the network on a W2K server.
If you need to do it (hope not!) then all you need is to perform a clean installation of NT4 on the server you want to restore + the backup software you're using.
BTW: which backupsoftware are you using?

Thanks for the 10 point, very generous, ...that made my life "shining"... (first 150 points...)

Marco.

[meloni]

hi
you perform a reboot in your test but have hou shut down the server for a few minuts?? this permit you to cut power supply to the dat unit and to eneble it to run the initialization and diag self test at boot time.
In fact, lot of time a random problem can cause a lack of communication with the device, and a fail of the driver. rebooting the server you can found again the device, but the unit is not reinitialized, the only way to reset it is to cut power for a few minuts.
bye

marino

[Luke_9]

Well, today I shut down the server, and restarted 2 3Com Surestack hubs, because I have some NW traffic problems-a Win95 client keeps dropping off the NW. The monitor just goes black, and the PC is still on, NW node still receiving signal.
Replaced the PC+monitor but still happens.

But it was down for over a minute, then upon restarting the tape deck lights flashed a self test pattern, then the system booted.

Maybe I should check to see if the tape deck is able to accept tapes/run calibration script?
However on the tape deck Support ticket it mentions a supply reel hang on rewind, and EEprom data is not accessible.
Sound like I should try a tape?

Thanks. Points all round!