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Tape Busy

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Brian E. Seppanen

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May 5, 2000, 3:00:00 AM5/5/00
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I'm having problems with our tape device on a SCO Server. We cannot get a
tape ejected.

System = SCO_SV
Node = bell
Release = 3.2v5.0.2
KernelID = 96/01/23
Machine = Pentium
BusType = EISA
Serial = B29680348
Users = 30-user
OEM# = 0
Origin# = 1
NumCPU = 1

These are the messages in /var/adm/messages

Fri Feb 11 13:07:10 2000
Station address is 00805FC1E645
Fri Feb 11 22:44:47 2000
%Stp-0 - - - Vendor=EXABYTE
Product=EXB-85058HE-0000
Mon Feb 28 12:31:30 2000

NOTICE: Stp: SCSI tape 0 device 46/0 offline
Mon Feb 28 12:35:19 2000

NOTICE: Stp: SCSI tape 0 device 46/0 offline

We're going to reboot the machine in approx. 30 hour, but I'd appreciate
any insights on how I can free up a device without rebooting.

Thanks,

Brian Seppanen
bsep...@bellmemorial.org


Shery

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May 5, 2000, 3:00:00 AM5/5/00
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use the following command at the command line

tape unload

Ken Wolff

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May 5, 2000, 3:00:00 AM5/5/00
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This particular problem is what causes 90% of our reboots. I'm not sure
what SCO does with it's tape drivers but all I (or one of our operators)
need to do is issue a dd command to copy in from tape before the tape is
ready and we get this message. From then on, the drive cannot be accessed
until we reboot.

...or, if we have a tape with errors, it seems SCO OSR5.0.5 just doesn't
handle the errors correctly.

Does anyone else run into this problem?

Ken


--------------------------------------------------------------
Ken Wolff
MAXIMUS
Child Support Collection Center
http://www.maximus.com
ke...@cscc.maximus.com
Phone: 616-957-4949 Ext: 111
Toll Free: 800-722-2338
FAX: 616-957-1614
--------------------------------------------------------------


Mike Dunton

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May 5, 2000, 3:00:00 AM5/5/00
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Ken Wolff wrote:

Ken,

Now that all my customers have converted to DAT tape drives, this problem
(can't eject tapes) has cropped up at several sites. Occasionally it happens
only once - they reboot and have no more problems. What caused it? Who knows.

In several other cases it was traced to a single tape. Throw out that tape &
it does not happen any more. In other cases, the tape drive was replaced & the
problem went away.

I wonder if the DAT tapes, specially DDS-3, are less robust than than the
DC-6525, etc.

Mike

Bill Vermillion

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May 5, 2000, 3:00:00 AM5/5/00
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In article <391345D3...@sunlink.net>,
Mike Dunton <mdu...@sunlink.net> wrote:

>Ken Wolff wrote:

>> At 03:05 PM 5/5/00 -0400, Brian E. Seppanen wrote:

>> >I'm having problems with our tape device on a SCO Server. We
>> >cannot get a tape ejected.

[big snippy]

>> Does anyone else run into this problem?

Yup.

>Now that all my customers have converted to DAT tape drives, this
>problem (can't eject tapes) has cropped up at several sites.
>Occasionally it happens only once - they reboot and have no more
>problems. What caused it? Who knows.

I had a customer who called the HW vendor because they were sure
the DAT drive had failed. I was called to be on hand during
warranty replacement.

A month later they called - it had happened again. A quick ps -ef
showed that a program still had the drive open. Kill the program,
and the DAT could then eject. That's the nature of the beast - it
is designed not to let you eject a tape if it is in use.


--
Bill Vermillion bv @ wjv.com

Jeff Liebermann

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May 5, 2000, 3:00:00 AM5/5/00
to
On Fri, 5 May 2000 23:37:50 GMT, bi...@wjv.com.REMOVEME (Bill Vermillion)
wrote:

>Kill the program,
>and the DAT could then eject. That's the nature of the beast - it
>is designed not to let you eject a tape if it is in use.

Well, sorta. HP drives have a not-so-secret method of ejecting the tape
when busy. Punch the button 3 times, wait 45 seconds, and out it comes.
It's somewhere in the C1533A and C1537 manuals.


--
Jeff Liebermann 150 Felker St #D Santa Cruz CA 95060
(831)421-6491 pgr (831)426-1240 fax (831)336-2558 home
http://www.cruzio.com/~jeffl WB6SSY
je...@comix.santa-cruz.ca.us je...@cruzio.com

Tony Lawrence

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May 6, 2000, 3:00:00 AM5/6/00
to
Bill Vermillion wrote:
> Yup.
>
> >Now that all my customers have converted to DAT tape drives, this
> >problem (can't eject tapes) has cropped up at several sites.
> >Occasionally it happens only once - they reboot and have no more
> >problems. What caused it? Who knows.
>
> I had a customer who called the HW vendor because they were sure
> the DAT drive had failed. I was called to be on hand during
> warranty replacement.
>
> A month later they called - it had happened again. A quick ps -ef
> showed that a program still had the drive open. Kill the program,

> and the DAT could then eject. That's the nature of the beast - it
> is designed not to let you eject a tape if it is in use.


Certainly true, but defective equipment and misconfiguration
can also do this. For example, I've seen a DAT configured
as Generic- it would not eject. I also had a customer
with a DAT tape that would not eject after being used
without rebooting, but I couldn't find any reason for it, so
we replaced it. I took the unit to another machine (same OS
and
version), and there it would eject fine, but then you
couldn't put a new tape (it just would not load) in without
rebooting, so the drive still wasn't very useful :-)

--
Tony Lawrence (to...@aplawrence.com)
SCO/Linux articles, help, book reviews, tests,
job listings and more : http://www.pcunix.com

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