device error from DLT

[Fred Martin_1]

I have an HP9000 (D380) running HP-UX 11.0 and have been using a DLT tape drive with it for several years.

For a couple of days our "cpio" backups have failed. When I try a manual cpio, here's what I get:

# cat filelist |
cpio -ocuvB > /dev/rmt/c4t1d0BEST
sh: /dev/rmt/c4t1d0BEST: Cannot create the specified file.

I don't thing the dev file looks any different than it ever does:

crw-rw-rw- 2 bin bin 205 0x041000 Aug 7 01:53 /dev/rmt/c4t1d0BEST

What could cause this, and is there an easy fix?

[Sanjay_6 · Accepted solution]

Hi Fred,

Do you see a tape device at c4t1d0 in your ioscan. What if you try to take a sample tar backup on this device.

Hope this helps.

Regds

[A. Clay Stephenson]

Your device node looks fine. I can think of 3) possible problems: 1) Bad tape drive II) Write-protected media C) Device is in-use or reserved by another process.

[Sajid_1]

hi,

Check the following:
# ioscan -fnC tape
Check drive physically
Check a tar/fbackup
Check media

HTH

[Fred Martin_1]

Yeah, it shows on ioscan:

tape 0 8/20/5/6.1.0 stape CLAIMED DEVICE QUANTUM DLT7000
/dev/rmt/0m /dev/rmt/c4t1d0BEST
/dev/rmt/0mb /dev/rmt/c4t1d0BESTb
/dev/rmt/0mn /dev/rmt/c4t1d0BESTn
/dev/rmt/0mnb /dev/rmt/c4t1d0BESTnb

----
Can I remove and re-create the device?

[A. Clay Stephenson]

You can remove the devive nodes and recreate them but that is not going to help. The major and minor device numbers are correct. If you don't see another process that is accessing the drive then it's time to suspect bad hardware.

[Sanjay_6]

Hi Fred,

Don't think recreating the device files is going to help. If the problem does not get fixed on reboot, you may have a faulty drive, see if you can get a replacement.

Hope this helps.

Regds

[Sajid_1]

hi again,

I don't think recreating the device file will help. You can try that option, but check the drive with any other backup command, change media and try, check the drive hardware.

HTH

[Fred Martin_1]

Well, I powered the drive off, then back on again. Wouldn't you know...I'm writing to it at the moment although I'm not going to be convinced it's OK without several hours of reads and writes. I'll keep you posted.

(yeah I probably should have tried that first)

[Fred Martin_1]

That seemed to fix it. Not sure what would have happened to make the thing misbehave. However, the power cycle did the trick.