Please Help. Can't retrieve from archives

[Craigy]

there is the error, your access to the tape is "read-only". update it with the "update volume" command with access read/write. you cannot restore a file with access read-only.

tsm: V1002_LIVEDB>q vol V1002-025 f=d
Volume Name: V1002-025
Storage Pool Name: LTO_STG_POOL
Device Class Name: LTO_CLASS_1
Estimated Capacity: 409.6 G
Scaled Capacity Applied:
Pct Util: 58.5
Volume Status: Filling
Access: Read-Only

Since when?

New to me!

C

[Craigy]

Psharpe - earlier you said

"I even removed the device files and recreated them using cfgmgr.
Varied the drive, drivepath and library offline and back online no problems."

I would go one step further.. delete the drive path and drive completely and redefine them.

Agreed.
come to mention it can we have lsdev -Cctape and lscfg -vpl rmt0 output please?
C

[psharpe]

Agreed.
come to mention it can we have lsdev -Cctape and lscfg -vpl rmt0 output please?
C

(ROOT@v1002) / # lsdev -Cc tape
rmt0 Available 00-08-00-4,0 IBM 3580 Ultrium Tape Drive
smc0 Available 00-08-00-2,0 IBM 3581 Tape Medium Changer

(ROOT@v1002) / # lscfg -vpl rmt0
rmt0 U7314.G30.6509EAA-P1-C6-T1-L4-L0 IBM 3580 Ultrium Tape Drive
Manufacturer................IBM
Machine Type and Model......ULT3580-TD2
Serial Number...............9110019286
Device Specific.(FW)........73V1

PLATFORM SPECIFIC
Name: st
Node: st
Device Type: byte

[n9hmg]

your drive is LTO2, so you're OK with LTO2 tapes. Your drive and path configuration is all fine, and the drive was definitely available.
Let's have a "q node <nodename> f=d" on the node you're trying to retrieve as, with particular attention to the " Maximum Mount Points Allowed:" value. It is entirely possible to do backups and archives with that set to zero, as long as everything you're doing can go into DISK class storage. Then, when it's migrated to something sequential, you can't have a mountpoint to get to it. maxnummp isn't supposed to be enforced for read operations, but there are plenty of other bugs, why not that one?

Oh, and of course you most certainly can restore from a readonly volume. I think somebody doesn't know the difference between readonly and unavailable or offsite or destroyed. However, the fact that it is readonly is potentially troublesome. Unless you're doing something like marking them readonly to prevent data from being deleted (that won't work), there has been a problem with that volume. Your data may or may not be ok. I would suggest auditing it, and if nothing is found wrong, mark it back to readwrite. I have had volumes go readonly when there wasn't really a problem - for instance, I was downloading drive logs just last week (for a different library issue), and that caused drive hickups.

[mikeymac]

The thing that bugs me most is the fact that his drive is reporting formats ULTRIUM/ULTRIUMC ONLY. Why doesn't it have the ULTRIUM2/ULTRIUM2C formats available to it? Would explicitly setting the devclass format to ULTRIUM2C (instead of DRIVE) fix this issue? It SHOULDN'T matter, right? But is it worth a try?

[koosdup]

Just my 2 cents. Please check the compatibility between the Atape Driver version and the Tape drive Firmware level. Running the latest Atape driver might be the cause of the failure as the tape drive might not have the latest firmware level. As far as I know on LTO2 the highest supported Atape driver would be (10.1.X.X). I might be wrong, but just confirm.

[wim]

I would do the following:

1. delete all paths
2. delete drives
3. delete library
4. update devclass to format=drives
5. recreate library
6. recreate library path
7. recreate drives
8. recreate drive paths
9. checkin scratch
10. checkin private

It seems to be a lot of work but shoudl only take a few minutes. It will make sure the TSM library definitions rescans the tapes and the device class should now accept LTO1 and LTO2 tapes.

Regards. Wim.

[psharpe]

Thanks for all your help and suggestions.

I have been doing a bit more investigation work today and found that the tape library was replaced by IBM whilst I was on holiday a couple of weeks ago.

I have also checked our development system which should be identical, to find that the drive read and write shows Ultrium2C. Can't remember who suggested that this was showing incorrectly but thanks. I have now gone back to IBM to find out what they did when they replaced the drive.

I'll keep you all posted.

Thanks,
Paul