SCSI DLT Tape Drive no longer responding

[Leigh Williams]

Hello,

My External DLT tape drive is no longer responding. The output from my ioscan is

Class I H/W Path Driver S/W State H/W Type Description
=============================================================
tape 0 10/0.3.0 stape NO_HW DEVICE Quantum DLT4000
/dev/rmt/0m /dev/rmt/0mn /dev/rmt/c2t3d0BEST /dev/rmt/c2t3d0BESTn
/dev/rmt/0mb /dev/rmt/0mnb /dev/rmt/c2t3d0BESTb /dev/rmt/c2t3d0BESTnb


How do I solve this? If I turn the device off while the server is still up will this cause any problems? I went into sam and it did not list it there. Do I have to re-add it?

Thanks in advance
Leigh Williams

[Jitendra_1]

Check the connections .Generally the NO_HW means the drive is present but not powered on. You can switch off the DLT and switch it back on. See if that helps.

[Jason Morgan_1]

I have turned the power off on a DLT tape drive on an N-class server, with no problems. Turned off the power swapped the unit with another, and turned it back on. I waited a moment then ran "ioscan" as root. The tape drive appeared a moment later. If you have a bad DLT drive it might not ever register itself again. :) good luck -jason

[Leigh Williams]

Thanks guys,

I tried cycling the power on/off but it still has a NO_HW state. I guess it's the drive. I'll log a hardware call.

Leigh

[Les Schuettpelz]

Several things to think about. How is the drive installed? Is it in a HA hot-plug cabinet, or standalone? In general, either type of connection allows the drive to be power-cycled without damage, as far as I know.

Did the device log SCSI I/O errors on close into the syslog? Has there been a backup or UNIX utility failure? Is there a tape stuck in the drive? Is it stuck in the 'operate handle' state, or are the panel lights flashing?

The DLT's seem to sometimes go offline after a trivial I/O error, power-cycle ususally clears it up without harm. You might need to do an ioscan to 'wake it up', but needing to do this is questionable. If the DLT stays in a NO_HW state it is probably dead, whether there is a tape stuck in it or not.

[Ryan McKlveen]

You may want to also check to make sure you are not "double terminated". Meaning, if you are using self terminated cables, make sure that your card itself is not also terminated. We've had that problem here.

[Leigh Williams]

All fixed. Thanks for your responses. The tape drive was dead. Got a new one in and replaced it.

Thanks again.

Leigh