Networker

Re: [Networker] SAIT-1 SCSI Drive Appears to Hang After Tape is Full (500+ GB) & Unmounted

2006-04-13 15:02:53
Subject: Re: [Networker] SAIT-1 SCSI Drive Appears to Hang After Tape is Full (500+ GB) & Unmounted
From: Stan Horwitz <stan AT TEMPLE DOT EDU>
To: NETWORKER AT LISTSERV.TEMPLE DOT EDU
Date: Thu, 13 Apr 2006 14:55:46 -0400
On Apr 13, 2006, at 1:11 PM — 4/13/06, Chris Read wrote:

Hi, I'm a new poster to this list, but have used NetWorker for over 10 years
on Sun boxes.

I just moved our software from a Sun Solaris box to a Fedora Core 4 x86 box.
   Dell Pentium D Server
   ATTO ExpressPCI UL4D SCSI Card
   Sony SAIT-1 Stand Alone SCSI drive
   Networker 7.3

The install seems to be basically working. I can label and mount a tape and
start a backup.  It runs fine until the tape is full.

The problem is that after unmounting the first tape, I want to label and mount a second tape. When I bring up the label window (and confirm that the Device, Volume Label, Pools, etc. are all correct) and press OK, an error window pops up that says "write open error: drive status is" and then a
blank line.

Sometimes it's "read open error" instead, but that's all I can get out of it. I was only able to do anything with the drive by rebooting the PC, but again, after it was done with the one tape, it hung with the same problem.

Any pointers or suggestions would be appreciated.

What I am about to say may seem silly, especially considering your email address, but try cleaning that tape drive, even if it was recently cleaned.

Do you get any SCSI error messages on your server? I've got a PetaSite library with 13 S-AIT drives and after using it for nearly 18 months now, I have learned what happens if those tape drives are not cleaned on a regular basis. Our Sony hardware is excellent, but the tape drives will balk when they are not cleaned enough. I am using a Solaris 9 box with NetWorker 7.2.1 with our tape library connected to it via fibre channel, but I have seen the same behavior occur that you described. I have also seen that behavior stop after doing a tape drive cleaning.

Oh, and double-check with software tech support that your S-AIT1 drive is using the latest firmware.

I also suggest you try mounting a tape you can afford to overwrite and then blow out its label with tar. Then try relabeling that tape again via NetWorker and see what happens.

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