Seagate TR4 tape drives and SCO 5.0.5 prob

[glennl]

I have a weird problem in SCO 5.0.5 and I do not know where to go next. My customers are using Seagate TR-4 Atapi tape drives and are getting the message "Can not open /dev/rStp0"
when they try to backup or read their tape drives. I need to run a mkdev tape choose 1) SCSI/Enhanced IDE tape Drive
and choose 5) Change default tape drive. I then need to press q 3X to exit out to a #, shutdown -y -g0 and power off
and on. Most of the time this fixes the problem, but the computer will have the same problem again, maybe the next day, the next week or a month from then. There is no rhyme or reason I can come up with. SCO's user newsgroups are useless in answering any of my questions, so I ask if anybody knows what could be causing this problem? Oh, I almost forgot, I have installed the RS505a and OSS600a patches on each computer. The computers all have 64MB RAM, and are Pentium II or III. The Tape drive is configured as Secondary Slave, with the CDROM drive as Secondary Master. The Hard Drive is a 10GB or 20GB hard drive configured as Primary Master.

 

[jimbolya]

My first instinct would be that the backup program, script or user do not have adequate permissions to the device.
But you say this is random. That might suggest that the hardware is not reachable. Do you receive the same results as root? An un-orthodox way to see if it is hardware is while the system is running unplug the power to the tape drive and hot plug it back in (risky tactic)[/red].

Just a few ideas in my pocket.

 

[glennl]

Thanks Jimbolya for responding to my query. I have logged in as root before and at the # ran tar tv6 to get a directory of the tape drive. I may or may not get a directory of the tape drive. I would then run the above steps to reset the default tape drive and reset the computer. I was hoping there was a SCO patch for their wd driver that sort of emulates the SCSI rStp0 driver or any fix for that matter. Thanks for your help.

 

[glennl]

I checked the permissions on rStp0 the driver that is not being seen. They are crw-rw-rw- . This seems OK

 

[clocke2000]

Is this an IBM server?

 

[glennl]

Clocke2000:
This is not an IBM server. It is a Trademark Pentium II or III computer.

 

[patw]

Pull both the CDrom and tape drives. Eyeball the jumper settings and confirm they are configured correctly - the CD set to Master and the tape set to Slave. If they are, consider swapping them - making the tape the master and the CD the secondary. Flaky CDroms have been know to cause these kind of problems when they are in the master position.

Is there a UPS on these systems? Has it been tested lately? (with no one logged in, pull the POWER cord from the wall to the UPS. If they system dies within a few minutes replace the UPS unit).

How many watts are the internal power supplies? If they are only 200 watt units then perhaps they have trouble supplying sufficent power when the drive kicks off.

 

[clocke2000]

The reason I asked if it was an IBM is because I have a similiar problem. IBM uses seagate tape drives. Ibm has a flash upgrade for the tape drive to fix the problem, but since yours is not an IBM I would check with Seagate to see if there are any firmware upgrades for your tape drive.