How to initialize /dev/rmt/0 without rebooting the server

[Dennis Bembenuto]

Hi, i'm new to HP. how can you initialize /dev/rmt/0 without rebooting the server. or how do you reconnect/reinitialize the tape drive without rebooting the server.

thanks.

[Raj D.]

Dennis,
You need to shutdown the server to perform this activity. There is no hot-swappable tape drive available. After replacing the drive , check with ioscan that it sees the drive, and check with mt command and check with a test backup with tar.

Cheers,
Raj.

[Luk Vandenbussche]

It is not officialy supported but you can do this if the stape drivers is in the kernel

1) Connect the tape drive and turn it on
2) ioscan -fnC tape
3) insf -e
4) ioscan -funC tape (to check the device file)

[MarkSyder]

Admittedly I'm not talking about HP-UX, but in my last job looking after unix servers we had several engineers who attached SCSI tape drives to running servers. Almost without exception, they caused a hard disc crash. Power the server down first!

Mark Syder (like the drink but spelt different)

[A. Clay Stephenson]

I routinely install tape drives without rebooting a server. Breaking a SCSI bus does indeed trigger a bus reset but that is considered a normal (more or less) SCSI event. There is a low (but not zero) probability of equipment damage from adding not hot-plug hardware to a hot bus but I have done this many times over many years and never damaged equipment. Of course, I am very careful not to damage pins and pay attention to not using incompatible equipment (such as HVD in an LVD bus). I also never mix tape and disk drives on the same bus so changes to a tape bus are much less likely to impact a running system.

In any event, you should be able to do this "on the fly" by:

1) Make sure that your SCSI bus will be properly terminated both before and after your tape drive install.

2) Install the tape drive with the drive powered off.

3) Power on the tape drive.

4) ioscan -fn

5) insf

[Dennis Bembenuto]

Thank you very much.... that help, when i did the steps on ioscan...

thanks for all who replied.

:)

[Dennis Bembenuto]

And it happened because there was a power trip off and the ops forgot to power on the tape drive.. again thanks all.

[dattu_1]

hi dennis,
Its good thT UR PROBLEM HAS BEEN RESOLVED BUT why dont u follow the norms of this forum...
Plzz grant points to all of those who helped u and especially to Mr Stephenson.