Issue with Ultrium 1760 SAS external drive and DL380 G6

[Jason Skippings]

We have an issue with Windows 2008 not detecting an Ultrium 1760 SAS external drive.

The drive is connected to a HP SAS Expander installed in the PCI Riser inside the DL380 G6 as standard. All cable connections have been checked, all drivers we can find have been loaded,

Windows has been patched and service packed to the hilt - excluding "optional" updates, so all native HP drivers are supposed to be running the tape.

We're using a mini SAS to mini SAS cable connecting the server to the external drive.

Windows device manager doesn't show any tape devices though.
We believe the HP SAS Expander is supposed to be a "child" node of the embedded Smart Array P410i controller in the server, but looking at the Smart Array config utility shows "No Tape Device", and watching the POST boot screen shows no indications that any SAS devices such as the tape are being detected when the server boots. (Although the SmartArray controller does display the 2 logical RAIDs we have defined)

Any assistance or ideas would be appreciated, as we've done most troubleshooting steps we can think of or find reference to. Thanks

[Curtis Ballard]

What firmware revision is running on the P410i? Early firmware did not support tape devices. 1.66 and later should be fine.

You should see a "Tape or CD-ROM devices found" message during the BIOS scan. If you can't see that then the HBA isn't communicating with the tape drive.

You should also check that your tape drive firmware is up to date although that is hard to do without the tape drive connected to the server. Really early builds of 1760 tape drive firmware wouldn't link up properly with the P410 controllers. If you have access to another tape drive you could create a firmware update tape with the latest firmware and move it to that drive.

[Jason Skippings]

Thanks Curtis

We did have v1.62 firmware so have now updated to v2.50.... but still no "CD-ROM or Tape device found" type message in the BIOS scan.

Next step will be to attempt the firware update on the tape drive itself.