It's a DDS3, and fwiw, its big enough and fast enough for our small system
(full backup every night with time and space to spare)
No reboots or other changes here between the last time it worked and the
first time we saw a problem.
Just tried powering off the drive for a few seconds -- didn't help. When I
inserted a tape after that, it was the first time I've heard tape-moving
sounds since this started, and it sounded a bit louder than usual.
I'll try to restart the system tonight. I don't need to power it off too,
do I ? Just off the tape drive, restart the 3000, re-power the tape, or
some such ?
But I'm calling HP too, to ask for a replacement.
Since my first post I've found some other devinfo calls that hang now, like
devinfo (7, "TapeTrackError") and devinfo (7, "IntTapeError"). All
these worked in the past (we run them every day). I'm trying to find one
that gives an error without hanging, but no luck so far.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Gilles Schipper" <[log in to unmask]>
To: "Dave Powell, MMfab" <[log in to unmask]>; <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, January 07, 2010 15:23
Subject: Re: [HP3000-L] tape problems
> Initial thoughts are that your drive is toast, but .....
>
> It may be worth performing a "power off" reboot to see if that "resets"
> what could be a transient problem on the tape drive.
>
> I say a "power off" reboot, because a reboot without a power reset of the
> tape drive would not correct any problem associated with a transient tape
> drive fault, although it could re-enable access to your tape drive if
> caused by system driver issues.
>
> Make sure, when performing the reboot that there is no activity whatsoever
> on the tape drive (such as tape loading). That could easily result in the
> drive being unaccessible until next reboot. (Has there, by chance, been a
> reboot since the drive last worked?).
>
> If still not working after reboot, you could also try to see if the media
> is the culprit. Does it reject all tapes?
>
> Finally, you didn't mention what kind of drive it is.
>
> If dds2, I may not even bother trying the reboot and instead replace with
> a dds3 or dds4(aka dat40) or even dds5 (aka dat72).
>
> Even a dds3 could be well-served by a dds4 or dds5 replacement since they
> "can be" significantly faster.
>
>
>
> At 06:01 PM 2010-01-07, Dave Powell, MMfab wrote:
>>I'd appreciate comments on whether I should restart the system tonight, go
>>straight to trying to get a new tape drive, panic, or whatever (I'm on
>>support).
>>It worked for monday backup, failed tuesday & wednesday nights.
>>mpe is current: RELEASE: C.75.00 MPE/iX HP31900 C.45.05 USER VERSION:
>>C.75.05
>>
>>Symptoms as follows
>>1: drive lights appear normal (nothing orange or blinking)
>>2: :showdev 7
>>LDEV AVAIL OWNERSHIP VOLID DEN ASSOCIATION
>>7 AVAIL
>>(with tape in the drive, nothing happening, ok so far)
>>3: when we insert a tape, there is no tape motion and we do not get any
>>console message about a tape being mounted.
>>3: backup job hangs on a line that says "DEVCTRL.MPEXL.TELESUP 7 ENABLE
>>DISABLE ONLINE" untill we abort it.
>>4: cleaning the drive, replacing tapes, etc, do not help.
>>5: Some devinfo commands work, like
>>:calc devinfo (7, "Available")
>>TRUE
>>:calc devinfo (7, "Ownership")
>>
>>(the blank is ok because it is not owned at the time)
>>
>>6: Other devinfo calls HANG THE SESSION (grumble) until we abortio the
>>tape
>>drive.
>>:calc devinfo (7, "TapeWriteProtect")
>>^
>>Unable to get information about tape. (CIERR 9904)
>>
>>:calc devinfo(7, "TAPEONLINE")
>>^
>>Unable to get information about tape. (CIERR 9904)
>>
>>The "unable" lines appear only after I "abortio 7" from another session.
>>
>>7: When I tried to store some files without any devinfo or devctrl, the
>>store hung with no visible activity. After 2 "abortio 7", the console
>>message finally appeared asking what device to use for the tape. Nothing
>>happened when I replied. After 2 more "abortio 7", got the same console
>>message again. Then I aborted it the job.
>>
>>* To join/leave the list, search archives, change list settings, *
>>* etc., please visit http://raven.utc.edu/archives/hp3000-l.html *
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Gilles Schipper
> GSA Inc.
> HP System Administration Specialists
> 300 John Street, Box 87651 Thornhill, ON Canada L3T 7R4
> Voice: 416.702.7900 Fax: 905.889.3001
> email: [log in to unmask] web: http://www.gsainc.com
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
* To join/leave the list, search archives, change list settings, *
* etc., please visit http://raven.utc.edu/archives/hp3000-l.html *
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