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i have a backup script which has been running as a cronjob for sometime with no errors. I have even resotred from the tape in the past so i know all is ok.
Today i have a problem with tape being stuck in the device and wont eject.
My tape device is /dev/st0 and is what i use in the backup script so i know this is correct. when i try to do a mt -f /dev/st0 status I get a no device error message. I have rebooted the server and can see the Tape drive in the DMESG and messages logs from bootup.
I am not sure what could be the problem. I have heard of removing st0 file from /dev and then recreating it using the MAKEDEV command however i am unsure if this where i would need to use this or could it be simply that my drive is broke. I have tried forcing it to eject via a command however i receieve a similar error message. Lights are on the drive etc.
Any help would be greatly appreciated if there is anything i can do to do more troubleshooting.
Tape drives are mechanical devices and tapes get stuck, jam or break. As it happens just last week a tape got stuck in one of my DLT drives and now its a big paper weight. It could have also just stopped responding and you can try cycling power to see if it resets itself.
Most likely it is a drive and not a computer problem. Look in the drives manual to see if there is an emergency eject procedure.
Distribution: Solaris 9 & 10, Mac OS X, Ubuntu Server
Posts: 1,197
Rep:
Could be just about anything. If `mt -f /dev/st0 status` gives you no such device, and you know that's what your backups had been using, then I would be looking for hardware issues. Power everything down (shutdown the computer, then power off the tape drive), and check that the cables are correctly seated and the terminator is seated or termination settings are proper. When you are confident of that, start up the tape drive and see if the eject button works to spit out the tape. Then start up the computer again and see what happens.
I'm presuming you've made no changes to hardware. But possibly the cat or the janitor or the spouse jostled the cables, or you repositioned the computer or tape drive. These are the easy things. As michaelk said, check the drive's manual. If it's on warranty, call for help. I actually had to disassemble my tape library, extract the drive, and spin a little deal on the circuit board to manually eject a tape. Not much torque on those, and it took hundreds of revolutions to very slowly move the tape dock down and slide it out. Of course, my drive type is different than yours, so no telling what you would run into. Pray for loose cables.
Thanks for the reponse guys, i will check all of the above, however i was just wondering how in dmesg and the messages log it was detected etc after reboot and yet i get the nonsuch device command, i thought if it would be hardware i wouldnt have expected to see it at boot in the logs/dmesg. Thanks
I think so, when i look for ls -l st* i see st0 etc, is there something else i should be looking for, are these files where the drivers are stored for the hardware devices on the server?
I am having same problem. My Redhat Enterprise Linux AS 4 unable to detect my scsi tape drive which is attach external scsi.
Following is the output which is generate from
#/sbin/lspci
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