[BUGS] scsi tape (external hp dltIV 35/70 gb)

[jonathan michaels]

greetings all .. 

before i start, sorry for teh length, its a bit of a saga. when
i first tried to use teh drive freebsd returned 'no /dev/nsa0'
sort off like that i know enoough about this new (to me) devfs
stuff to look in /dev/ for teh created device descriptors (i
think they are called) and like teh kernel said there was no
/dev/sa0 or anything like that, but when i pluged in teh tape
drive  there was a /dev/cd0 device descriptor and teh system
could find/use teh scsi external cdrom .. but no sa0 and not
use find/use the tape drive



now that i've finally managed to get a working sised tape drive
)35/70 gb( that won't chew up tapes or pinch rollers and most
of teh things most other tape drives do by way of thier
designed in "features" grins, it is most annoying freebsd has
difficulty seeing teh device very much like the nightmare i had
with teh tandberg tape drives about a decade ago (it turned out
to be freebsd not able to see/use the relevent tandberg drives
i was using).

but, this time i am thnking it might be hardware issue(s)
which is why i've included more detail than usual (in cse it is
teh hardware) .. by teh way i hve an almost identical tape
drive (both are rebadged quantum DLTtape IV 35/70 GB tape
drives) in a compaq proliant 5500 and it worked a real treat ..
untill teh 750 watt powersupply made it a real handfull at
electricity bill due times (about $120/month i think it was)

i plug in teh scsi cable and the terminator (its little ligh
glows green ?? if that means anything) and turn on teh proliant
1850r (still of freebsd v5.4-r) and this is all i get from eth
log file

sorry i clipped the tail end of teh testing sequence .. i
stated several hours before teh logged times were i got the
error and no tape responce, all teh lights for teh tape
densitity lit up (bit confusing, as its a dlt IV - 35gb tape in teh
hole, bit it conciders itself to be "ready" for operation.

i then went into several, very many, attempts at geting the
tape drive to respond by setting teh log..er lun id thingie on
teh back to teh (as i recal) freebsd faverite std tape luns of
4 i think then i tried the std dec2compaq2hp faverite of 6 then
i tried almost all of teh them teh thumbwheel would turn to
other then the boot device lun 0 (for teh scsi raid deviced
boot disk) 1 to 15 .. ok not teh host adapters id either.

about teh only difference was that on some of teh lower id's
3/ 4/ and 2 i think) the box would go through its start up sequence
and not have all teh density lights on teh lhs of teh facia
mnel lit up .. but still teh error message, still freebsd came
back with not being able to find "/dev/nsa0" 

then i pulled it all apart cleaned its insides  made sure all
teh internal were connected properly, checked teh cable for the
usual things .. all came up clean and in 'working order' .. as
well as a visual inspection can asertain.

i treied once more at teh hp std lun (6 it was originally set
to) same error same no work .. sit down think

pull tape out think of using it as a door stop cat anchor etc,
etc. i then pluged in an external scsi cdrom drive with a
freebsd v5.4-r installl cd inside and restarted .. it found the
drive as you can see, then booted and proceeded to the
installation menues etc. i also trieed several linux cdroms and
a freesbie v1.1 or was it gnopix at any rate it worked up to
teh point were the 1850r (itself) became teh issue not the tape drive 

i also edited teh local /etc/fstab to inclued a place for teh
scsi cdrom to have is its 'home' directory so to speak

Jun 25 08:44:36 caamora kernel: Waiting 15 seconds for SCSI devices to settle
Jun 25 08:44:36 caamora kernel: cd0 at sym1 bus 0 target 3 lun 0
Jun 25 08:44:36 caamora kernel: cd0: <PIONEER CD-ROM DR-124X 1.04> Removable CD-ROM SCSI-2 device 
Jun 25 08:44:36 caamora kernel: cd0: 4.166MB/s transfers (4.166MHz, offset 8)
Jun 25 08:44:36 caamora kernel: cd0: cd present [188011 x 2048 byte records]
Jun 25 08:44:36 caamora kernel: Mounting root from ufs:/dev/idad0s1a


this is teh atapi std installed cdrom drive

Jun 25 22:55:37 caamora kernel: acd0: CDROM <CD-224E/9.0B> at ata0-master PIO4

during teh cdrom test it work as well as it usually doses

after i conformed, to myself at teh time that the scsi
subsystem was working as it should with the external bus
connected and terminated .. ergo the working external cdrom
device

i pluged the external tape drive into the same port turned on
all teh relevent bits and this is what it reported

as set to irq6

Jun 25 22:55:37 caamora kernel: Waiting 15 seconds for SCSI devices to settle
Jun 25 22:55:37 caamora kernel: sym1: suspicious SCSI data while resetting the BUS.
Jun 25 22:55:37 caamora kernel: sym1: dp1,d15-8,dp0,d7-0,rst,req,ack,bsy,sel,atn,msg,c/d,i/o = 0x100309, expecting 0x100
Jun 25 22:55:37 caamora kernel: Mounting root from ufs:/dev/idad0s1a

as set to  irq 15

Jun 25 23:12:59 caamora kernel: Waiting 15 seconds for SCSI devices to settle
Jun 25 23:12:59 caamora kernel: sym1: suspicious SCSI data while resetting the BUS.
Jun 25 23:12:59 caamora kernel: sym1: dp1,d15-8,dp0,d7-0,rst,req,ack,bsy,sel,atn,msg,c/d,i/o = 0x100309, expecting 0x100
Jun 25 23:12:59 caamora kernel: Mounting root from ufs:/dev/idad0s1a

as it had for all teh previous rebooted and reset luns ??

can any one help me decipher teh cryptic (to me) error message,
i tried google and some of teh other searching tools available
in teh opera searc engine menu all i managed to discover was
that my tape drive was outdated and needed upgrading, how to go
about getting a service contract etc, etc, etb....cetera

umm in case it means anything i tried teh tape in teh other
scsi port on teh backplane and freebsd/the proliants internal
code whinged about it not being a raid capable hard disk unit,
something like that .. oh and i tried the units
service/diagnostics cdrom and it didnot find anything wrong,
also didn;t find the tape but as far as i can see its not got
anything specifically designed to test/look for tapes ??? but i
am not too sure of that...

apologies for teh length, i have tried to include a complet'ish
history

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