SUMMARY: Problems with HP sequential loader and NSR

From: Andreas Bunten <andreasb_at_pz-oekosys.uni-kiel.de>
Date: Thu, 11 Sep 1997 17:00:49 +0200

Hello,

I only got one answer from Sam Nelson, who had similar
problems with the same device. We swapped it with another
one from the same department to find out more. And indeed
everything worked fine with the other one. Could it be
wearout? Sam Nelson hinted into the same direction.

Yours,
Andreas Bunten

---
My original question:
> 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
[error event log snipped]

Received on Thu Sep 11 1997 - 17:32:49 NZST