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LTO4 tape reading on LTO6 drive

MatBams
Level 4

Hi everyone,

We try to read an old LTO4 tape without barcode to duplicate the data on our new LTO8 tape.

In my robot, i've one HP LTO6 drive. I saw that you can read LTO4 tape in LTO6 drive but i've an issue with this.

I define my LTO6 drive in NBU as an HCART density and my LTO4 tape as too an HCART density. When I try to initiate import from catalog, i've an error "Robot operation failed : Unmountable tape". When i used robtest i've this error "Incompatible medium installed".

I'm ready to put the tape directly in the drive but i'm not sure that's the good way.

Please can you help on this topic ?

Regards.

 

1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION

Accepted Solutions

Marianne
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You need to find out what format the barcode label should be for STK.
My guess it that it needs a suffix that indicates the media type (e.g. L4, to indicate LTO4).
That is how the library knows that the tape is compatible with the drive.

The alternative is to use the drive as standalone.
Maybe remove it in NBU from the robot, then open the door and load the tape manually in the drive.
Use 'vmoprcmd -d' to see if NBU picks up the internal label.

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quebek
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Hello

This should work... Can you please provide output from

scan

tpconfig -d

bpstulist -U

vmoprcmd

vmquery -m LTO4TAPE_label - what ever it is maybe A00001 or so ...

to which drive you wanted to mount this LTO4 tape? Are you 100% positive it is LTO4 - what color it has... I think in HP work these were green... if my memory serves me correctly.

You will find in attachment the results of the commands.

I want to mount this green tape LTO4 HP C7974A to an LTO6 drive HP 6250.

Marianne
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@MatBams 

Which make/model tape library?

I know that some tape libraries will not load any tapes without barcodes.
STK libraries for example.
This is to prevent an incompatibile tape being loaded into the drive.

Can you use 'robtest' to manually load the tape in the drive?

Can you use vmphyinv to perform a 'physical' inventory?

quebek
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Hi

so your robot  number for this HP drive is 1 and it is STK

Port: 5; Bus: 0; Target: 1; LUN: 0
Inquiry : "STK SL3000 4.55"
Vendor ID : "STK "
Product ID : "SL3000 "
Product Rev: "4.55"
Serial Number: "571030210022"
WWN : ""
WWN Id Type : 0
Device Identifier: ""
Device Type : SDT_CHANGER
NetBackup Robot Type: 8
Removable : Yes
Device Supports: SCSI-5
Number of Drives : 1
Number of Slots : 25
Number of Media Access Ports: 26
Drive 1 Serial Number : "HUJ546549M"

 

as Marianne said... Most likely the STK won't do it. Any idea what is the physical media ID for this LTO4? I would have printed the same barcode for it... witl L4 suffix... or any barocode and then played around with vmchange once NBU will not like that ;)

Hi

Yes it's STK.

In my opinion, this is an very old tape at the begining of this internal network and i think that there were an independant drive connected directly to the media. Now we use this STK. There aren't any barcode on this tape, only a label created manually and named A00005

quebek
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are you able to move it to drive using STK web site?

Marianne
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Partner    VIP    Accredited Certified

You need to find out what format the barcode label should be for STK.
My guess it that it needs a suffix that indicates the media type (e.g. L4, to indicate LTO4).
That is how the library knows that the tape is compatible with the drive.

The alternative is to use the drive as standalone.
Maybe remove it in NBU from the robot, then open the door and load the tape manually in the drive.
Use 'vmoprcmd -d' to see if NBU picks up the internal label.

No i can't move it with SL console. I think the only solution it's to barcode this tape with L4 barcode.

mph999
Level 6
Employee Accredited

Can you open the robot and push the tape into the drive by hand ....   if so 

Mark the tape drive in NBU as Non-robotic (in drive properties).

The tape drive will move from 'tld' to 'avr' (which is correct for a standalone drive) - just make a note of the drive position in the robot so you can put it back easily afterwards - will need to restart ltid.

Load the tape into the drive by hand  ...

Duplicate your tape ...

You might get a pending request that you have to confirm, not sure, sometimes happens with standalone drives - if you do, you will see it in vmoprcmd output when you start the job, it's just a numberical value - listed under 'Pending requests'.

If so, run tpconfig -d and make a note of the drive index number, this is the number on the left of the drives - the drive should be easy to spot as it'll have AVR alongside it.

To confirm the pending request

vmoprcmd -assign <drive_index>  <mount_request_id>