URGENT Tape I/O Error 1

[juggers]

Hi all,

I have an E250 (solaris 2.6) I want to know if the tape driver is damaged (DDS3) or it is something with the files. when i give a tar cvf /dev/rmt/0 data the tar starts to write to tape. but after a minute it gives tar error :I/O error. whatever directory i try it writes for a minute then gives error even with CPIO.... How can i check if the Tape driver is damaged... why it writes for a certain time then faults? ...I changed the tape media.

Thanks alot

time is the father of truth

 

[bfitzmai]

From the ok> prompt... Do the following:
printenv

Check to see the status of auto-boot? If it is true, enter the following:
setenv auto-boot? false

Then enter:
reset-all

Once you get back to the ok> prompt:
probe-scsi-all (I think that is the command).. If it isn't, enter help diag... That will give you a list of diagnostic commands you can use.

Make sure the tape drive is being detected. If it is, do a reconfiguration boot...

What is the mt command you are using... Should be something like this:

mt -f /dev/rmt/0 stat (will give you the status)
mt -f /dev/rmt/0 rewind (will rewind the tape)
mt -f /dev/rmt/0 offline (will eject the tape)

Also, you are aware the /dev/rmt/0n means no rewind.

When you are finished, make sure you set auto-boot? back to true.

 

[juggers]

Thanks bfitmazai for your quick reply.

First i want to ask how to reach the Ok > (long time not used this ) and secondly if i go there, the system will continue running i mean i have users on the syetm. On the other hand when i installed the tape driver i did not check the scsi id on the tape drive, this might be a problem as well?

Thanks in advance

time is the father of truth

 

[KenCunningham]

Juggers. No, your users will be disconnected. What do you see in /dev/rmt - the new drive may well be /dev/rmt/1

Otherwise, arrange some downtime and do a reconfiguration boot as per bfitzmal's instructions. Possibly upgrade to a version of Solaris where you can add hardware through devfsadm?

 

[bfitzmai]

Juggers,
You will have to bring down the Server to reach the ok> prompt. init 0 will get you there. There is a command like prtconf that may get you the same information. Not sure if it is available in Solaris 2.6. Will check when I get to work and post. There are other commands that will build your device tree without doing a reconfiguration boot. Again I will post them unless defranze or someone else can list them... If I remember right the device ID should be set to 4 for tape drives. You may want to check that.

 

[juggers]

Hi all,
The prtconf runs on 2.6.
copy where the tape is mentioned.
slot2disk (driver not attached)
slot2dev (driver not attached)
pci, instance #0
ebus, instance #0
auxio (driver not attached)
power, instance #0 (driver not attached)
SUNW,pll (driver not attached)
sc (driver not attached)
se, instance #0
se, instance #1
su, instance #0
su, instance #1
ecpp, instance #0 (driver not attached)
eeprom (driver not attached)
flashprom (driver not attached)
SUNW,envctrltwo, instance #0
network, instance #0
scsi, instance #0
disk (driver not attached)
tape (driver not attached)
sd, instance #0
sd, instance #1 (driver not attached)
sd, instance #2 (driver not att
I will shutdown after a couple of hours, I will check the jump[ers on the drive. and then i follow bfitzmai steps.
anything else?

Regards


time is the father of truth

 

[bfitzmai]

Juggers,

If you can't turn off your server because of users,
you can use the tapes command to create the device links from the /dev directory to /devices... See man tapes.

Also there is a command called drvconfig in Solaris 2.6.

According to the man pages for tapes, you should run drvconfig before you run the tapes command.

 

[juggers]

Bfitzmai,

New tape is working fine now. I did a status 5 shutdown.
changed the jumpers as they were in the defective tape drive. Power ups the server, then went to open boot (Stop + a).Reset-all, probe-scsi-all, boot -r .

and the tape was ready.

Thanks for your valuable contribution, and thanks for everyone else's contributions as well.

Regards


time is the father of truth

 

[bfitzmai]

Outstanding Juggers..

Thanks for the Star...

Bruce