MISSING_DRIVE?

[Jim_Haywood]

Hello all!

I've got a problem with one of my tape drives...

Our backup server (Netbackup 6.0 MP3 - Windows 2K3) has a two tape drive autoloader. One of the tape drives appears to be down - On the graphical representation of the backup device, the drive in question has a downwards pointing red arrow.

The other drive in the unit, along with the robot-arm tape changer are functioning fine and dandy. Because one of the tape drives is not functioning, some of our jobs are being pushed out of the backup window and failing, as there is not enough backup resources to deal with it.

When I look at the drives in the Activity Monitor, it states that I have '2 Drives: (0 Active 1 Down)'

In the 'Drive Path' for the drive, it states: 'MISSING_DRIVE:HU106155K0' and when I right click to bring the drive up, It provides me with the following error message:

"Unable to up the selected drive: HP.ULTRIUM3-SCSI.001.
The drive is not ready or inoperable (227)"

Thing is, on the control panel for the tape drives, no error is reported at all, and all seems to be functioning.

In Device Manager, there is a record for a tape drive - Hewlett Packard LTO Ultrium-3 drive, but only one is noted down. Is this usual for a device of this breed, or should I be expecting to see two devices here? Reason I ask is, there is a record under 'Other devices' labelled: HP NS E1200-320 SCSI Array Device, which is apparently working fine, but I'm not quite sure what it does - Including it in this message for completenesses sake.

Important to note that this solution has been working fine in the past for a good few months.

Can anyone help me either resolve this issue, or prove it as a hardware fault so I can contact HP?

I've tried to include every bit of info I can think of, but let me know if you need to know more! Thank you kindly in advance for any help!

Jim

[h_m]

Jim,

>Our backup server (Netbackup 6.0 MP3 - Windows 2K3) has a >two tape drive autoloader. One of the tape drives appears to >be down - On the graphical representation of the backup >device, the drive in question has a downwards pointing red >arrow.

Are you saying the actual tape library is displaying the drvice as down, or is NetBackup showing as down?



Windows is terrible when things happen with drives, and it sounds as though the drive has dissapeared from the O/S and has reappeared. Whereas UNIX would be fine with this, it can cause havok with Windows, and the only solution is to reboot.

So while the O/S may be happy with the drive, NetBackup is not. Go for the reboot, all should then be happy.

[Jim_Haywood]

Rebooted the server, and the situation remains sadly exactly the same. Boo hiss! Thanks for the suggestion though!

What else could I try ladies and gents?

[Jim_Haywood]

...And sorry - It's NB that's reporting the drive as down, not the drive itself. The log on the drive is remarkably free of errors.

[h_m]

Within "My Computer" \ Manage \ Device Manager \ Tape drives - do you see both drives?

what does "vmoprcmd" show?

What does "tpconfig -d" show?

What does "tpautoconf -t" show?

[Jim_Haywood]

Hello!

As I noted before:
In Device Manager, there is a record for a tape drive - Hewlett Packard LTO Ultrium-3 drive, but only one is noted down. Is this usual for a device of this breed, or should I be expecting to see two devices here? Reason I ask is, there is a record under 'Other devices' labelled: HP NS E1200-320 SCSI Array Device, which is apparently working fine.

But for clarity: There is only one drive listed under 'Tape Drives' and there is one SCSI device listed under Other Devices, that may well be the other tape drive, or something else entirely.

It does look like Windows has forgotten about the drivers for one of the tape drives, doesn't it?



Output of commands are as follows:

C:\Program Files\VERITAS\Volmgr\bin>vmoprcmd

HOST STATUS
Host Name Version Host Status
========================================= ======= ===========
backupserver 600000 ACTIVE

PENDING REQUESTS




DRIVE STATUS

Drive Name Label Ready RecMID ExtMID Wr.Enbl. Type
Host DrivePath Status
=============================================================================
HP.ULTRIUM3-SCSI.000 No No No hcart3
backupserver {2,0,0,1} TLD

HP.ULTRIUM3-SCSI.001 No No No hcart3
backupserver MISSING_DRIVE:HU106155K0 DOWN-TLD

C:\Program Files\VERITAS\Volmgr\bin>tpconfig -d
Id DriveName Type Residence
SCSI coordinates/Path Status
****************************************************************************
0 HP.ULTRIUM3-SCSI.000 hcart3 TLD(0) DRIVE=1
{2,0,0,1} UP
1 HP.ULTRIUM3-SCSI.001 hcart3 TLD(0) DRIVE=2
MISSING_DRIVE:HU106155K0 DOWN

Currently defined robotics are:
TLD(0) SCSI coordinates = {2,0,0,0},

EMM Server = backupserver


C:\Program Files\VERITAS\Volmgr\bin>tpautoconf -t
TPAC60 HP Ultrium 3-SCSI G25W HU10618NPE 2 0 0 1 Tape0 - -

C:\Program Files\VERITAS\Volmgr\bin>

[h_m]

>But for clarity: There is only one drive listed under 'Tape Drives' and there is one SCSI >device listed under Other Devices, that may well be the other tape drive, or something else >entirely.

Your O/S can only see one drive. Even if you have 2 devices on one SCSI cable, you will see 2 tape drives in the O/S. Also your outputs only see one drive. So you have a hardware issue. Try to power cycle the library - or get a hardware call in!

Good luck!

[Jim_Haywood]

Thanks for your help h m.

The library itself has been rebooted a couple of times in order to try and fix to no avail. Does this confirm that this is definitely a hardware issue, or could it be driver related? I'm thinking about that one 'Other Device' that has no clear label as mentioned above...

[h_m]

Jim,

The unknown device is the SCSI module for the library and is not the missing drive. Is the lirbary FC or SCSI connected to the server?

Either way it sounds as though the server does not have connectivity to the drive, and if fibre this may mean the device is not zoned to the server etc.

[Jim_Haywood]

It's FC connected, but shouldn't need zoning as it's directly connected to the back of the server.

So, nothing else to suggest before calling out the people at HP?

[h_m]

Well it really could be anything. 1 - could be the FC router in the library, 2 - could be hardware.

1 - could be the FC router in the library - each drive can be maked, so it can be unpresented through here.

2 - could be hardware - then time for a call.....

You must have 2 HBA's in your server if the tape drivevs are directly attached? Possible it could be that? Try to swap the cables over to see which tape drive it picks up? If you do this and run 'tpautoconf -t' then the current working tape drive serial number is HU10618NPE . If you swap over the cables re run 'tpautoconf -t' and see what the serial number is (think the down drive serial number is HU106155K) . I take it you are getting lnk lights on the HBA's?.