wrote in message
news:1172961580.436653.140580@8g2000cwh.googlegrou ps.com...
>I have an IBM GEN5 tape drive in a new xSeries server. Some things
> work, other do not. For example, cleaning cartridges load and clean
> like they are supposed to. The first time I issue a command to the
> drive I get the Vendor string recorded in /var/adm/messages. I can do
> various tape commands including status, xstatus, getcomp, and they all
> seem to behave normally.
>
> However, when I put a data tape in, once inside there is one very
> brief flash of the green media led. Immediately, the tape is
> ejected. There are no error messages.
>
> The drive is the only device on 1 channel of a ServeRAID 6m
> controller, though it seemed to behave the same on an ad320
> controller.
>
> Any ideas?
>
> Thanks
>

What kind of tape are you using? According to the IBM website, this
drive is backwards compatible with DDS4 and DDS3 tapes, which
implies that it will reject DDS2 and older tapes.

The drive should work for loading and unloading purposes whether
or not it's connected to the SCSI bus. I would try it again disconnected,
with an appropriate unused, uninitialized tape. If it still doesn't work,
you can assume that one of the tape format LED sensors is defective
and the drive should be replaced under warranty.

Bob

----- Original Message -----
From:
Newsgroups: comp.unix.sco.misc
To:
Sent: Saturday, March 03, 2007 5:39 PM
Subject: strange scsi dat tape behavior


>I have an IBM GEN5 tape drive in a new xSeries server. Some things
> work, other do not. For example, cleaning cartridges load and clean
> like they are supposed to. The first time I issue a command to the
> drive I get the Vendor string recorded in /var/adm/messages. I can do
> various tape commands including status, xstatus, getcomp, and they all
> seem to behave normally.
>
> However, when I put a data tape in, once inside there is one very
> brief flash of the green media led. Immediately, the tape is
> ejected. There are no error messages.
>
> The drive is the only device on 1 channel of a ServeRAID 6m
> controller, though it seemed to behave the same on an ad320
> controller.
>
> Any ideas?
>
> Thanks

Many (most?) tape drives do that when you put media in that physically fits,
but which the drive recognizes it can't use because it is either
older/smaller or newer/larger than the range of media the drive supports.

In such cases it's the drive itself doing it and it doesn't matter what kind
of controller it's plugged into or what os the host computer is running.

It sounds like you have the controller and drive all correctly set up and
that they both work fine at least electrically.
Triple check that you really do have media that is appropriate for the
drive. This may mean triple checking that you actually have the type and
version of drive that you think you do and what kind of media that drive
supports.

One unlikely but possible way to get those symptoms is if you use the
non-rewinding device node (/dev/nrStp0, or any name that has the same
major/minor number or any symlink to it) and the tape is already all the way
at the end.

There is one other way I've seen something very similar to this (the tapes
stayed in the drive for a few seconds instead of popping back out instantly)
but I'm only relaying it for the humor, I'm sure you didn't do this.
One of my customers realised all on his own that it's good to have more
tapes. So he sensibly took one of his existing tapes, searched on-line for
the numbers he saw on the cover (dds3 dat40 etc..) and successfully located
and ordered a case of a dozen perfectly correctly compatible cleaning tapes.

Brian K. White -- brian@aljex.com -- http://www.aljex.com/bkw/
+++++[>+++[>+++++>+++++++<<-]<-]>>+.>.+++++.+++++++.-.[>+<---]>++.
filePro BBx Linux SCO FreeBSD #callahans Satriani Filk!