Ejecting Stuck Media on a DLT8000 Drive

[Jimmy Roux_1]

Hello,

I have a stuck tape that does not respond to 'Unload All Tapes' command from the front panel, and the uma utility from the command line.

Unload All Tapes returns an Error: Drive Failure.

On HPUX11i, what's the right command to eject the tape?

# uma -ioctl /dev/rac/c6tod0
/dev/rac/c0t6d0>stat

shows that Slot 11 is Empty beacuse the tape is in the drive. From /dev/rac/c6t0d0, how do I eject the tape.

# man uma <- shows that there is a 'offl drive' command but when I use it, it tells me that there is no such option. How do you use this option.

Also, will the command mc works in ejecting a stuck tape in a 20-Slot DLT8000?

How about the command mt? How do you use it? What's the difference between all these, uma, mc, mt?

Thanks.

Jimmy

[harry d brown jr · Accepted solution]

See this thread http://forums.itrc.hp.com/cm/QuestionAnswer/1,,0x8825cb60e503d6118ff40090279cd0f9,00.html, especially Michael Tully's response.

live free or die
harry

[Eugeny Brychkov]

Jimmy,
if you will not be able to eject tape by HPUX command(s) and front panel operations then call HP for drive replacement.
Please inspect ALL tapes inside your library for broken, unseated, or misaligned tape leaders (read lib's manual for more info).
Eugeny

[Michael Tully]

I don't what happened to the post that Harry mentioned, however I'll have a guess what was in it and answer your question.

Other than the checking for the bad tapes, I would also check that your firmware is up to date, both for your drive(s) and your tape library.
With omniback make sure that you have the following items.

st_ats_enabled set to '0' in your system kernel.
Make sure that your tape library attempts to ejects tapes for failed sessions.
Devices --> Select Library, right click,
Control --> Select 'Eject Medium' as the
busy drive handling option and not 'Abort'

Disable the EMS monitoring for SCSI tape drives, see attached document.

To move a stuck tape without using 'uma'

e.g.
# mt -t /dev/rmt/1m rew (rewind the tape)
# mt -t /dev/rmt1m offl (take the drive off-line)
# mc -p /dev/rac/c0t6d0 -sD1 -dS1 (move the tape from drive one to slot 1, see the man page for 'mc')
Run a library barcode scan, so that your library and omniback database are in sync.

I would also like to suggest you set a proper robot controller device. See my next answer for the attachment.

HTH
Michael

[Michael Tully]

Attached is the robotic arm document.

[Jimmy Roux_1]

Thanks to everyone for the responses. I'll try them out to see if that will get the tape to eject.

Some questions for Michael:

>Other than the checking for the bad tapes, I
>would also check that your firmware is up to
>date, both for your drive(s) and your tape
>library.

What would be the right firmware revision?

>With omniback make sure that you have the
>following items.

>st_ats_enabled set to '0' in your system
>kernel.

My current setting for st_ats_enabled is '1'.
This must be the default setting. What would
it do if I set it to '0'? Is there a reason
why default setting is '1'?

>Make sure that your tape library attempts to
>ejects tapes for failed sessions.

Usually, the tape library ejects the tape in
cases of failed sessions. What happened was
that the directory was changed during the
backup session. The session failed but
somehow the tape was not ejected. Another
session started and the RAC took the next
tape but did not do anything with it - just
held it. So, it ended up being one tape in
the drive and another in the RAC.

>Devices --> Select Library, right click,
>Control --> Select 'Eject Medium' as the
>busy drive handling option and not 'Abort'

I don't see the Eject Medium option. Sorry,
but I should have mention my OBII vesion is
3.5.

>Disable the EMS monitoring for SCSI tape
>drives, see attached document.



To move a stuck tape without using 'uma'

e.g.
# mt -t /dev/rmt/1m rew (rewind the tape)
# mt -t /dev/rmt1m offl (take the drive off-line)
# mc -p /dev/rac/c0t6d0 -sD1 -dS1 (move the tape from drive one to slot 1, see the man page for 'mc')
Run a library barcode scan, so that your library and omniback database are in sync.


Thanks Michael. Thanks to everyone.
I'll let you how it goes.

Cheers,

Jimmy