ignite recovery tape doesn't work

[Gregory Hartmann]

I made a recovery tape using "make_recovery
-A -v" and that seemed to work ok, but when
I try to boot off the tape I hear the tape drive working, then the message appears:

Failed I/O operation
with ENTRY_IO
status = -5

(hex dump)

Error Reading IPL

I would greatly appreciate any help!
Greg

[Robert Gamble]

It sounds like a bad tape drive. When was the last time you verified that the tape drive could 'read' a tape ? Creating tapes doesn't count.

Good Luck!

[Gregory Hartmann]

I can boot up the machine with the old disk and then do a "tar tv" on the recovery tape,
and I can see the contents of the tape so the drive appears to be working ok.

[Manju Kampli]

you can try cleaning the tape drive with cleaning tape and start the restore again.


at what stage you are getting this I/O error. When you start booting from the tape, does comes up to loading the INSTALL kernel .. if it is not booting tfrom the tape then the boot image on the tape would have been corrupted ..

[James R. Ferguson]

Gregory:

First try cleaning the tape drive. Do the cleaning operation 2-3 times.

An Ignite make+recovery tape contains a LIF followed by a tar archive. I assume that you spaced over the LIF when you said you could read the tar archive. That is, you did:

# mt -f /dev/rmt/0mn fsf 1
# tar tvf /dev/rmt/0m

To verify the LIF, do:

# mkdir /tmp/ignitetest
# copy_boot_tape -u /dev/rmt/0mn -b -d /tmp/ignitetest

If the LIF is good, you will see its contents displayed. If the LIF is corrupt you should see a message like:
"lifls: Can't list /tmp/ignitetest//bootimage; not a LIF volume".

If this is the case, I'd try a fresh tape on a cleaned drive and start a new make_recovery.

...JRF...

[Wolfgang Joesch]

Hi Gregory,
what happend to your problem, could you solve it? I have the very same problem, I can read the LIF file off the recovery tape, but cannot boot from it. Is there maybe a problem that my DAT drive is a DDS3 tape from Seagate and not from HP. The DAT works fine once the system has been installed.
Regards Wolfgang

[Alex_17]

Hi,

try the following to verify your tape is ok:

1. Check the log in /var/opt/ignite/logs/makrec.logxx

2. Boot from the tape and stop the boot process before non-interactive recovery begins.
This will verify whether the first image on the tape is bootable.

3. Verify the second image on the tape (tar with OS files):

a) Skip over the first image with mt command using the
appropriate tape device file;

mt -f /dev/rmt/0mn rew

mt -f /dev/rmt/0mn fsf 1

b) Verify the contents of the tar image with the tar
command using the appropriate device file;

tar tvf /dev/rmt/0m

[John Bolene]

We had that problem using DDS3 tapes also, but have no problem using a DDS or DDS2 tape drive.

We had to suppose that the format on a DDS3 tape was unable to be read by the boot rom.

[Eileen Millen]

The latest version of Ignite version 3.3 can do network archives. The command is
make_net_recovery -i -s Ignite_server_name
Then to do an recovery you would interrupt the boot up and enter
boot lan.ip_address_Ignite_server install

[Satish Y]

Are u sure u used "/dev/rmt/0mn" while preparing the recovery tape?.

Other reason may be, some of the blocks in ur tape might be corrupted.

Cheers...
Satish.

[Wolfgang Joesch]

Hi guys,
would like to assign you points for your helpful answers. If you want points send a dummy reply to the question I posted last week.
(Look for Wolfgang Joesch)

It turned out that I had to use another DAT drive, the ARCHIVE Python 04106-XXX cannot be used to boot from.
Enjoy your day

Wolfgang

[John Bolene]

Sounds like wolfgang found the real answer.

Now, I wonder why certain tape drives cannot be booted from?

Maybe they are missing a signal lead?

I know that there are CD drives that cannot be booted from, but do not know why that is either.