Problems with HP sequential loader and NSR

From: Andreas Bunten <andreasb_at_pz-oekosys.uni-kiel.de>
Date: Fri, 05 Sep 1997 12:29:52 +0200

Hello Managers,

We have a DEC 3000 running DU 3.2. Attached to it is a sequential
loader for six dat-tapes from HP (I don't know the exact identi-
fication for it at the moment) on which we backup with NSR.

After several months of good work, the tape drive caused the alpha
to crash and not boot anymore. After some resaerch we found a
hint in the documents belonging to a HP SureStore 2000i (C1551B or
C1552A), which is basically the same device (only it holds just
one tape and our sequentail loader can take 6):

Some additional switches to configure it for use on different
Unix-flavours. We happily turned those switches (also found on
our sequential loader - but not documented) from PC default
to DEC configuration and our Alpha suddenly booted again.

But now we have a new problem. The loader or the software won't
recognice the tapes anymore. We get quite a lot error events from
the CAM SCSI logger, but we had already some of those before.

The loader behaves very strange. All the lights on the front
display start to flash, when I try to label some tapes (with
some other tapes it works ...) and it demands a cleaning tape.
After cleaning the same happens again and again ...
The tapes it rejects are sometimes new and not used at all.

Has somebody a clue what the problem might be?
Any ideas welcome!


Thanks in advance - I'll (of course) post a summery,
Andreas Bunten

---
some more information:
we use the sequential loader as a TZ877 in NSR. It has a SCSI
id of 3.  this is a sample error event:
----- EVENT INFORMATION -----
EVENT CLASS                             ERROR EVENT
OS EVENT TYPE                  199.     CAM SCSI
SEQUENCE NUMBER                  4.
OPERATING SYSTEM                        DEC OSF/1
OCCURRED/LOGGED ON                      Thu Sep  4 15:48:30 1997
OCCURRED ON SYSTEM                      aramis
SYSTEM ID                 x00020004     CPU TYPE:  DEC 3000
SYSTYPE                   x00000000
----- UNIT INFORMATION -----
CLASS                         x0001     TAPE
SUBSYSTEM                     x0000     DISK
BUS #                         x0001
                              x0058     LUN x0
                                        TARGET x3
----- CAM STRING -----
ROUTINE NAME                            ctape_move_tape
----- CAM STRING -----
ERROR TYPE                              Hard Error Detected
----- CAM STRING -----
DEVICE NAME                             UNKNOWN
----- CAM STRING -----
                                        Active CCB at time of error
----- CAM STRING -----
                                        CCB request completed with an
error
ERROR - os_std, os_type = 11, std_type = 10
----- ENT_CCB_SCSIIO -----
*MY ADDR                  x828E3728
CCB LENGTH                    x00C0
FUNC CODE            x01
CAM_STATUS                    x0084     CAM_REQ_CMP_ERR
                                        AUTOSNS_VALID
PATH ID              1.
TARGET ID            3.
TARGET LUN           0.
CAM FLAGS                 x000000C0
                                        CAM_DIR_NONE
*PDRV_PTR                 x828E3428
*NEXT_CCB                 x00000000
*REQ_MAP                  x00000000
VOID (*CAM_CBFCNP)()      x004B1670
*DATA_PTR                 x00000000
DXFER_LEN                 x00000000
*SENSE_PTR                x828E3450
SENSE_LEN            x40
CDB_LEN              x06
SGLIST_CNT                    x0000
CAM_SCSI_STATUS               x0002     SCSI_STAT_CHECK_CONDITION
SENSE_RESID          x2A
RESID                     x00000000
CAM_CDB_IO           x00000000000000FEFFFF0111
CAM_TIMEOUT               x00000E10
MSGB_LEN                      x0000
VU_FLAGS                      x0000
TAG_ACTION           x00
----- CAM STRING -----
                                        Error, exception, or abnormal
                                         _condition
----- CAM STRING -----
                                        MEDIUM ERROR - Nonrecoverable
medium
                                         _error
----- ENT_SENSE_DATA -----
ERROR CODE                    x0070     CODE x70
SEGMENT              x00
SENSE KEY                     x0003     MEDIUM ERR
INFO BYTE 3          x00
INFO BYTE 2          x00
INFO BYTE 1          x00
INFO BYTE 0          x00
ADDITION LEN         x0E
CMD SPECIFIC 3       x00
CMD SPECIFIC 2       x00
CMD SPECIFIC 1       x00
CMD SPECIFIC 0       x00
ASC                  x11
ASQ                  x00
FRU                  x00
SENSE SPECIFIC       x990000
ADDITIONAL SENSE
0000:   08000000  00000308  00000000  00000000        *................*
0010:   00000000  00000000  00000000  00000000        *................*
0020:   00000000  00000000  00000000  00000000        *................*
0030:   7E250000  00005E3C  00000000  00000000        *..%~<^..........*
---

Received on Fri Sep 05 1997 - 12:54:09 NZST