Tape Drive (/dev/rct0) donot work sometimes


 
Thread Tools Search this Thread
Operating Systems SCO Tape Drive (/dev/rct0) donot work sometimes
# 1  
Old 02-28-2012
Tape Drive (/dev/rct0) donot work sometimes

Hi all,

I am facing problem with my Tape drive (hp) (/dev/rct0) on SCO Unix version 6.0.0. Sometimes tar works fine but some times it doesnot work and I have to restart the server to get it work. One reboot/shutdown is OK. to solve the problem. Error is "cannot open /dev/rct0" though the tape is recognised (ls /dev/rct0 is there). Same tape drive is Ok at one time and other time this problem is there.

Powering ON/OFF tape device is of no help
This is not the issue of tapes

Only rebooting the box fixes the problem.

I am not getting what exactly is the problem.

Help is appreciated,

regards,


Dexter
# 2  
Old 02-28-2012
My thinking is that this is NOT a software issue. This sounds like a subtle hardware issue.

I assume this tape drive is a SCSI device.

Try shutting down and unplugging/replugging the SCSI cable, perhaps also take out and reseat the SCSI adapter itself. Also, check the SCSI terminations.

Also, replug the power supply to the tape drive.

Has this problem suddenly occured after working fine for some time?
# 3  
Old 02-29-2012
My experience was 4.2 and 5.0 with tape drives and your symptoms are of a tape drive going bad. At some point before you needed it to work it lost ready and can only get it back on a reboot.
# 4  
Old 03-01-2012
Yes, I agree but, adding to my previous post, the reboot gets the SCSI adapter to issue a SCSI reset to the tape drive and it appears that this is enough to make it work. Therefore, SCSI communication is most likely the issue hence my comment about re-seating the cables, etc.
# 5  
Old 03-02-2012
# 6  
Old 03-02-2012
You didn't answer my question as to whether this has ever worked or simply stopped working. Also what type of tape drive it is.

Another thought is that, if it is a DAT drive, these usually have a 8 pole DIP switch underneath which if set incorrectly (for this hardware and O/S) might cause this type of behaviour.
# 7  
Old 03-05-2012
Hi Hicksd8,

<You didn't answer my question as to whether this has ever worked or simply stopped working.>

As I said , this works fine sometimes and sometimes it don't work and shows "cannot open /dev/rct0" (tape OK.) .This is not the new tape drive we are using, it has been here working fine , without this fault, from last 3 yrs.

Yes it is a DAT drive (HP storage works DAT 40).

regards,

Dexter
Login or Register to Ask a Question

Previous Thread | Next Thread

8 More Discussions You Might Find Interesting

1. Solaris

Help with tape drive

Hey folks, Linux admin here, forced to use Opensolaris to try to use ufsdump/ufsrestore to get some data of some old tapes. I've got Opensolaris 2009.06 on x86 and a Sony SDX-700V. As a "control" experiment, I booted the system with a Linux live CD and the tape drive worked perfectly. ... (2 Replies)
Discussion started by: eddy_sysad
2 Replies

2. Solaris

/dev/rmt is empty - Trying to make Tape Drive Functional

I have an HP Proliant DL380 with Intel Processors that I recently loaded Solaris 10 with latest patches on it. I'm trying to do a ufsdump to an HP DAT 40 tape drive via SCSI, but I can't get it to do anything because /dev/rmt is empty. I've tried the following with luck: touch /reconfigure,... (7 Replies)
Discussion started by: cvaughn
7 Replies

3. SuSE

Tape Loader Device /dev/sgN is altering after each reboot

Dear all, we are running SLES 11 where an iscsi tape library is attached. To load the tape in a slot we are using for instance the command #mtx -f /dev/sg1 load 2 which is doing very well. But after a server's reboot the device name of the loader is now /dev/sg4 or /dev/sg5 I mean it is... (1 Reply)
Discussion started by: xunil321
1 Replies

4. AIX

Piping to /dev/rmt0 tape ?

I am trying to find a way to do the following on an AIX 4.2 with Korn: tar cvfpdl - . | compress > /dev/rmt0 The /dev/rmt0 is the device we use when we tar directly to it. I want to compress a folder's content to tape. Our current TAR does not have compression at all. We only have... (5 Replies)
Discussion started by: Browser_ice
5 Replies

5. Filesystems, Disks and Memory

Cant' mount usb drive, /dev/sda1 not showing up

Hi, I'm trying to mount a usb drive but the path /dev/sda1 does not show up under /dev when I plug in the usb device. In fact I see no differences under /dev before and after I plugin my usb drive. Any ideas why the system is not recognizing the usb drive and how to fix? This is on a... (3 Replies)
Discussion started by: orahi001
3 Replies

6. AIX

Tape Drive

I have tape drive in one Lpar. when i saw that time tape is in defined state. After that i deleted the tape drive using the rmdev -R command. Then fired the cfgmgr -v command. But I am not getting the tape drive. Now the drive is even not in defined state also. It is not shown the tape drive. How... (1 Reply)
Discussion started by: pernasivam
1 Replies

7. UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

mt command shows /dev/tape: inappropriate ioctl for device

Hello guys, on my Red Hat machine the /bin/mt status command gives the output dev/tape: inappropriate ioctl for device. This messages comes up after the Server has been rebooted. Anybody an idea? Thx masterofdesaster (8 Replies)
Discussion started by: masterofdesaste
8 Replies

8. UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

tape drive

Hi, I need to restore my tape backup, when I type "tape status" it gives; status : ready beginning-of-tape write-protected soft errors : 0 hard errors : 0 underruns : 3 but... (4 Replies)
Discussion started by: alisevA3
4 Replies
Login or Register to Ask a Question