A couple of things:
1) I hate scsi. Sometimes you have to sacrifice a chicken to make it work
reliably. Even if it's worked well for years. Make sure all your scsi cables
are seated correctly and tightened. I'd even disconnect and check all the pins,
and reconnect them. If you aren't using Granite Digital cables and terminators.
Go buy them. Now. http://www.granitedigital.com/scsiproducts.aspx. I missed
your earlier post, how is the scsi cabled? What are each steps in the link?
2) Always use the native driver, not the default windows one. I've been using
Adaptec HBAs since the late '80s and there are good and bad things about them,
however most tape library vendors recommend them as the default hba. Make sure
you are using the latest drivers.
3) If you are using LTO tape, download and install IBM's LTO tape driver. Read
the instructions and especially the readme.txt
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?rs=543&context=STCVQ6R&dc=D430&uid=ssg1S4000189&loc=en_US&cs=utf-8&lang=en
4) I have seen the block size problem be a phantom error when the underlying
scsi system was having issues.
-----Original Message-----
From: EMC NetWorker discussion [mailto:NETWORKER AT LISTSERV.TEMPLE DOT EDU] On
Behalf Of sav2880
Sent: Thursday, January 22, 2009 8:08 AM
To: NETWORKER AT LISTSERV.TEMPLE DOT EDU
Subject: [Networker] Cannot Label Tapes / Networker 7.4 SP4
Fazil Saiyed wrote:
> Hello,
> Sounds like there are errors still undiagnosed in the system, start with
> HBA's, Typically, the block size should be 64 KB for Windows, the fact
> that you are seeing error in that regards, may indicate some issue with
> writing the data to the tapes with optimal size, are the tape heads clean
> ?
> Have you run diagnostics on the overland ? Confirm your block size and
> tape parameters via MT or similar cmd.
> Did you rule out any issues with the media or drivers ? are you receiving
> error on more then one media ?
> HTH
>
I'll try to answer these best I can ...
1) The tape heads were cleaned to begin the process, and I have cleaned them
once since. So, best I can tell, the heads are clean.
2) Have not run diagnostics specifically on the Overland, but I have tried two
separate Overland Powerloader LTO jukeboxes, both with the same result. So,
since I've tried a couple of different units, that was my attempt to rule that
out as a possible reason.
3) I am receiving the errors on multiple tapes. In fact, I recently took out a
few tapes that were empty that I had been attempting to use and replaced them
with newly opened tapes, and the result has been the same.
This is one thing I have done that may be helping though ... last night, I
changed out the SCSI card for another one we had, a LSI Logic PCI-X Ultra320
SCSI host adapter. Windows picked up on it right away, it appears to be using a
generic Microsoft driver (which is different than the Adaptec, which was using
a newer driver from 2007 off their site).
When I attempted to re-run the tape label from the GUI, it did not take the
long period (30 minutes) to time out, it finished its efforts in about 2
minutes. The error I got then was a tape rewind error, saying that the tape
status was that the drive was ready.
Additionally, when I ran scanner -vv \\.\Tape2, it did not show the block
error. It then (properly I think?) showed the default block size zt 32kb, and
the maximum at 64kb.
Not sure at this point, might be making progress on it, hard to say. What
settings in Networker should I be looking for at this point, should I hard code
the HBA size to 64kb or leave it at handler default?
+----------------------------------------------------------------------
|This was sent by classicgames AT yahoo DOT com via Backup Central.
|Forward SPAM to abuse AT backupcentral DOT com.
+----------------------------------------------------------------------
To sign off this list, send email to listserv AT listserv.temple DOT edu and
type "signoff networker" in the body of the email. Please write to
networker-request AT listserv.temple DOT edu if you have any problems with this
list. You can access the archives at
http://listserv.temple.edu/archives/networker.html or
via RSS at http://listserv.temple.edu/cgi-bin/wa?RSS&L=NETWORKER
To sign off this list, send email to listserv AT listserv.temple DOT edu and
type "signoff networker" in the body of the email. Please write to
networker-request AT listserv.temple DOT edu if you have any problems with this
list. You can access the archives at
http://listserv.temple.edu/archives/networker.html or
via RSS at http://listserv.temple.edu/cgi-bin/wa?RSS&L=NETWORKER
|
