HP tape drive problem on Compaq Proliant server

[eepico]

Hi all,

Regarding my previous thread thread58-189509 , my HP DDS4 24G tape dirve are being worst by the time. Although the cha_print_warnings valiable is set to zero in the space.c file, the error messages still appear in the syslog. But it's not a big deal. The worst thing is that the drive always jam the tape and LED light is turned off once inserted. I need to shutdown the machine and POWER OFF and ON to bring it up again then do backup or something else using the tape. I guess there is a hardware bug between HP tape drive and Compaq Proliant server. Is there any fix patch by HP or Compaq to solve this? Should I "mkdev tape" and remove the HP one and then install a non-HP one?

Thank you very much!

 

[apeasecpc]

I don't know for sure what your solution is, but Compaq's recommendation you were quoted in the other thread would not actually fix a problem with the tape drive, all it does is turn off the error message on the screen. I believe the message "SCSI bus has been reset...Attached SCSI peripherals will be returned to the power up state" is the explanation as to why the drive is shutting down. I know from personal experience that SCSI can be picky on startup. I have a SCSI scanner on my home PC that won't come up unless I turn it on after the system is booted into windows.

Your problem might be caused by incorrect controller settings, improper termination on your SCSI cable, a bad tape drive, a bad controller, or a driver problem. I recommend you focus on the controller settings first before assuming that the driver is the problem. Have you tried installing the tape drive on a DOS/Windows machine using the same controller to see how it works there?

As far as your question about HP vs non-HP drivers, my recommendation is that you continue to use the driver that is intended for your specific drive. The response to your earlier post sounds like someone else was able to get it work using the same driver.

 

[eepico]

Thanks, I think I will test the adaptor and drive in Windows later if all methods had been tried. According to your recommendation, you told me to focus on the controller settings first before assuming that the driver is the problem. Is that mean changing the numbers in /etc/conf/cf.d/mscsi to some other numbers?

 

[apeasecpc]

Actually I am meaning more basic than that. Go into the controller firmware itself during bootup. You can get into the firmware of most scsi controllers by a keystroke combination early in the bootup process. There is usually a message on the screen saying what keys to press to do it. Also some controllers are accessed by software which is usually run from the DOS prompt (if this is your case you can boot to DOS from a floppy without hurting your UNIX system). Check your controller manual for how to get into the firmware.

The firmware lets you configure settings within the controller itself, some of which may be applicable to your problem. With SCSI, termination and transfer rates are critical, and there may be other settings related to how the controller scans the SCSI bus on startup. For tape drives it is usually a good idea to reduce the SCSI transfer speed, because the fast transfer is designed for hard drives, whereas tape drives communicate much slower.

Sometimes the solution can only be discovered by trial and error. One thing you can be sure of though, you will never get the drive to work right at the OS level if it isn't set up right at the controller level.