AIT 35 LVD tape drive driver.
 

Hi LinuxQuestions.org

I have a Compaq AIT 35 LVD internal tape drive in my Compaq ML370 server with RedHat9 installed.

Problem
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1. No device file where normally be /dev/rmt/0 is found. Hence system can not access tape drive.

Research result
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1. Found from redhat web site, found that RH9 does not bundle driver for this tape drive.

2. Log case to HP, I was told that the software on its web site is only a utility and no driver. Advised to use generic driver.

3. I found that "st" driver will not be loaded when reading the output of "lsmod". I am able to "modprobe st" and even "modprobe sg", but still there is /dev/rmt16 and /dev/rmt8 files only.

4. There is only 1 file called "scsi" at /proc/scsi, with content "Attached devices: none". However there are also SCSI hard disk that were RAID1. By right I should see some thing but not.

5. By doing testing "tar cf /dev/rmt8 /var" and "tar cf /dev/rmt16 /var" will get error message that is similar to "Cannot open: no such device".

6. The tape drive can be detected with the SCSI firmware utility before O.S bootup. It can be used in W2K before it was reinstalled with RH9.

Question
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1. What type of device driver will be used for AIT 35 LVD internal tape drive? If generic driver "sg" is used, what should be the corresponding device file I should get and how should I build with device file using driver "sg"?

Kindly provide me assistance.

Thanks

SCSI tape device IDs are /dev/st* and use the generic module st.

What type of SCSI controller do you have? Since no devices are being recognized I suspect that the module isn't being loaded. Check the ouput of dmesg to see if there are any errors associated with the SCSI controller.

Hi michaelk,

Thanks for your answer. I have been troubleshooting this for long long time.

I think I understand what you said. As the hard disk are RAIDed, with module cparray, then it is controlled by RAID card and is not considered as SCSI device. That's why the SCSI disk is not shown at /proc/scsi/scsi.

I will check "dmesg", at the same time I will check the SCSI controller. Do I just have to download the SCSI controller driver and the "st" will be loaded followed by creation of device file "/dev/rmt/0", then the problem will get solved?

Thanks.

Hi michaelk,

I think I have to downgrade to RH8, as the driver I downloaded from HP web site can't be installed on RH9.