11-24-2009
4,
0
Join Date: Nov 2009
Last Activity: 26 November 2009, 11:03 PM EST
Posts: 4
Thanks Given: 0
Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts
Dell PowerEdge 2600 tape backup
I was asked to get a Dell PowerEdge 2600 server, out of warranty, running SCO 3.2v5.06 to perform a full backup. I spent hours researching and preparing a strategy only to fail on-site.
The only device names in /dev for a tape drive were
/dev/xStp0
/dev/xcdt0
/dev/xct0
There was no /dev/rStp0 as expected for a scsi drive, so I assumed the drive wasn't scsi. I tried all the above device names in all the commands below.
I tried many of the things would find searching online, but none worked. For example, I went into scoadmin to view the tape drive settings to verify kernel knew about it. It came back with only this
ID 0 Dat
I tried mounting the tape device but got errors about cannot access device
I tried writing a single file to tape only to get errors about cannot access device
# cd /tmp
# ls > junk
# find ./junk -print | cpio -ocaB > /dev/xStp0
I tried some tape commands and got same errors about cannot access
# tape reten /dev/xStp0 (or rewind)
# tape status same with # dtype /dev/xStp0
I tried hwconfig -h but didn't see anything that indicated the drive was recognized.
# sdiconfig -l was an unrecognized command
Since the system was in production during normal hours, I could not try mkdev tape, but even if I could, I'm not sure I'd get anywhere.
Since this is a Dell system, I'm wondering if the tape drive was ever configured correctly coming from them. The bundled internal tape drive appears to be a Dell PowerVault 100T Dat72. I determined that by looking at the service tag system configuration (shown here)
1
U1868,
Tape Backup Unit,20GB,Half Height,Internal,DDS4,Seagate V7
and by looking up the PowerEdge 2600's description at
http://www.dell.com/downloads/global/products/pedge/en/2600_specs.pdf
I'm in need of your advice regarding the tape drive.
I'd also like to know the easiest way to get a full backup off of this thing as soon as possible independent of the internal tape drive. For example, it must be running NFS since a user showed me she could access files from Windows. Is there a product that can backup from Windows? Is there a way to backup to USB? The cd drive is not writable. This thing has never been backed up.
I'd try microlite if I was sure that running mkdev tape would get me anywhere, but I'd like to know why the "installed" tape drive isn't working if possible.
Thanks.