is this right

[hpuxhelp]

Ioscan shows 5 tapes currently located on system, if I did mt -f /dev/rmt/0mn fsf : return no such device or address : is this mean that this particular tape is not in use or there is no tape..if the above command return something not Zero then the tape is not in used or it is not ready...?? is this correct

[Pete Randall · Accepted solution]

Steven,

It's possible that there is no tape device connected there any more. You'll have to get the H/W path info from ioscan and track down the cables on the machine to see if there's anything connected on that path.

Pete

[Martin Johnson]

Also check to see if the tape drive is powered up.

HTH
Marty

[Ken Hubnik_2]

Do this ioscan to show all the tape devices with there device files and post the output.

ioscan -fnkC tape

[Sridhar Bhaskarla]

Hi,

When you get no such device or address, there are two possibilities.

1. Either the location where this device file is pointing to has no tape drive attached.

Do

lssf /dev/rmt/0m and note down the address and physically verify if there is a tape at that addresss. You can get it from ioscan too. See if it says CLAIMED.

2. Or, there is no tape in the tape drive

To test it, you can do

mt -t /dev/rmt/0m rew

-Sri

[hpuxhelp]

tape 0 0/0/1/0.6.0 stape CLAIMED DEVICE
/dev/rmt/0m /dev/rmt/c0t6d0BESTn
/dev/rmt/0mb /dev/rmt/c0t6d0BESTnb
/dev/rmt/0mn /dev/rmt/c0t6d0DDS
/dev/rmt/0mnb /dev/rmt/c0t6d0DDSb
/dev/rmt/c0t6d0BEST /dev/rmt/c0t6d0DDSn
/dev/rmt/c0t6d0BESTb /dev/rmt/c0t6d0DDSnb
tape 1 0/8/0/0.8.0.0.0.0.0 stape CLAIMED DEVICE QUANTUM DLT7000
/dev/rmt/1m /dev/rmt/c3t0d0BEST
/dev/rmt/1mb /dev/rmt/c3t0d0BESTb
/dev/rmt/1mn /dev/rmt/c3t0d0BESTn
/dev/rmt/1mnb /dev/rmt/c3t0d0BESTnb
tape 2 0/8/0/0.8.0.0.0.1.0 stape CLAIMED DEVICE QUANTUM DLT7000
/dev/rmt/2m /dev/rmt/c3t1d0BEST
/dev/rmt/2mb /dev/rmt/c3t1d0BESTb
/dev/rmt/2mn /dev/rmt/c3t1d0BESTn
/dev/rmt/2mnb /dev/rmt/c3t1d0BESTnb
tape 3 0/8/0/0.8.0.0.1.2.0 stape CLAIMED DEVICE QUANTUM DLT7000
/dev/rmt/3m /dev/rmt/c4t2d0BEST
/dev/rmt/3mb /dev/rmt/c4t2d0BESTb
/dev/rmt/3mn /dev/rmt/c4t2d0BESTn
/dev/rmt/3mnb /dev/rmt/c4t2d0BESTnb
tape 5 0/8/0/0.8.0.0.2.4.0 stape CLAIMED DEVICE QUANTUM DLT7000
/dev/rmt/5m /dev/rmt/c18t4d0BEST
/dev/rmt/5mb /dev/rmt/c18t4d0BESTb
/dev/rmt/5mn /dev/rmt/c18t4d0BESTn
/dev/rmt/5mnb /dev/rmt/c18t4d0BESTnb
tape 6 0/8/0/0.8.0.0.2.5.0 stape CLAIMED DEVICE QUANTUM DLT7000
/dev/rmt/6m /dev/rmt/c18t5d0BEST
/dev/rmt/6mb /dev/rmt/c18t5d0BESTb
/dev/rmt/6mn /dev/rmt/c18t5d0BESTn
/dev/rmt/6mnb /dev/rmt/c18t5d0BESTnb

here is the output of ioscan..
what does 0m , 0mn omb etc..stand for???

[Pete Randall]

Steven,

First, it looks odd to me that there's no device associated with your first drive - all the others say Quantum DLT7000.

Second, 0m and 0mn are the AT&T style device files for regular and no rewind, respectively. The ones with the b are Berkely style.

Pete

[Sridhar Bhaskarla]

Hi Steven,

You have 5 DLTs in a chain and 1 DDS tape drive.

Are you keeping the tape in the DDS tape drive?

b represents berkeley style. No b is at&t style
n represents norewind. So, the system will not rewind the tape to write data before and after.

-Sri

[hpuxhelp]

thanks for your help...
pax vs tar ?
when i did the tar -vf /dev/rmt/omn : I got this error message tape
Tar: blocksize = 4
directory checksum error
but when i use pax ...i was able to see all files

[Sridhar Bhaskarla]

Steven,

For future reference and to close the thread, can you post the reason why it was giving "no such device or address"?.

Thanks,
Sri

[hpuxhelp]

There was no tape in the tape drive

[Bill Hassell]

Regarding tar versus pax. The HP-UX version of tar is unable to accomodate different block sizes and will give you that error for tar rtapes from other systems. It will also give you the same error if the tape was not written in tar format. pax (unlike tar and cpio) understands any blocksize and also understands cpio and tar at the same time so it can decode the two formats.

Backups are a royal pain without proper labels on the tapes. Unix lacks good tools to decipher unmarked tapes although an extended /etc/magic file can sometimes be fairly useful (man file).