IDE Tape Drive problem

DimHelmet · 10-13-2005, 05:12 PM

I'm trying to use a Seagate STT3401A IDE tape drive in a box running RHEL 4. I had it running fine in RHEL 3, but then upgraded the box when 4 came out, which promptly resulted in Kernel Panic. The latest kernel update supposedly fixed the problem.

I've loaded the ide-scsi module, and it is recognized and assigned /dev/st0. The problem is, I can't load any tapes! When I insert a tape, the LED on the drive flashes for about a minute (like the tape is loading and rewinding), but it then ejects the tape. I can't find any messages to indicate what's wrong. I've tried issuing various commands using mt and then inserting the tape, but nothing seems to work.

I'd really like to be able to get this box to backup properly (I'm currently backing up over ftp to an old RedHat 7.2 box with a DLT drive that works perfectly). Anyone have any ideas that I can try?

michaelk · 10-13-2005, 05:45 PM

Have you tried different tapes? I do not see how upgrading could affect tape loading. AFAIK the loading process is purely a function of the drive.

DimHelmet · 10-14-2005, 11:06 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by michaelk
Have you tried different tapes? I do not see how upgrading could affect tape loading. AFAIK the loading process is purely a function of the drive.

Michael,

Thanks for the response. Yes, I've got six tapes that I use (Monday-Thursday and two Fridays). None of them had issues before the upgrade--now none of them will load. I'll have to dig around to see if I've got a new tape to try. I suppose it's possible that the drive went kaput the same time as the upgrade.

michaelk · 10-14-2005, 11:32 AM

Make sure the ide-tape module is also not being loaded.

DimHelmet · 10-14-2005, 11:51 AM

It's not. Here's what lsmod tells me:

Code:

Module                  Size  Used by
ide_scsi               17481  0
st                     36061  0
scsi_mod              121293  2 ide_scsi,st
parport_pc             24577  1
lp                     12077  0
parport                37129  2 parport_pc,lp
autofs4                23237  0
i2c_dev                11329  0
i2c_core               22081  1 i2c_dev
sunrpc                159269  1
md5                     4033  1
ipv6                  234881  16
ipt_REJECT              6593  1
ipt_state               1857  9
iptable_filter          2753  1
iptable_mangle          2753  0
iptable_nat            23037  0
ip_conntrack           40565  2 ipt_state,iptable_nat
ip_tables              16705  5 ipt_REJECT,ipt_state,iptable_filter,iptable_mangle,iptable_nat
dm_mirror              27825  0
dm_mod                 56661  1 dm_mirror
button                  6481  0
battery                 8901  0
ac                      4805  0
uhci_hcd               31065  0
ehci_hcd               30917  0
shpchp                 82373  0
hw_random               5845  0
e100                   41793  0
mii                     4673  1 e100
floppy                 58481  0