Accessing HP Colorado Tape drive

[Floppyman]

Hi all,

I'm trying to get my 5gig HP Colorado Tape drive to workin in MD 9.1

The first thing I did was try to emulate it as a SCSI drive since my burner was already emulated. So in my lilo.conf file I changed my append line to:

append="hda=ide-scsi hdc=ide-scsi"

where hda is the cd burner and hdc is the tape drive. I also added the st module into the modules file in /etc so that would load automatically during boot.

Now I got back into Mandrake and logged on as root. when I try to do a dmesg | grep st0 nothing happens. When I try to mount the tape drive by mount /dev/st0 it doesn't work. Doing mount /mnt/tape doesn't work either, along with trying to mount hdc. Now when I do a dmesg | grep hda I get information about the cdrom, including a kernel command line that basically states that the drive is emulated as a SCSI drive. When I do a dmesg | grep hdc, I get the tape drive information, BUT that kernel command line does not show up so I'm wondering whether the drive is actually being emulated.

Do I have to edit another file besides lilo.conf? Am I missing something somwhere? When doing a lsmod, the st module loads fine but looks to be unused.

More info on this problem can be found here too:

http://www.justlinux.com/forum/showt...&postid=615980

This is original link with instructions that I tried to follow. I went through it step by step, but for some reason in my case it's not working.

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...003/07/1/68926

Also, the mt command does not work at all. Any ideas there?

Thanks in advance for the help.

[kilgoretrout]

I assume you have an ide tape drive as opposed to a floppy controller tape drive. If not, I don't think what your doing will work. Do the following files exist in /dev, st0 and/or nst0 ? If they do, I think you have to tell the st driver to handle the device as a scsi2 tape drive by running the following command:

# mt -f /dev/nst0 stoptions scsi2log

I'm going from memory here; dumped my ide tape drive some time ago.

then try doing some basic stuff with mt:

# mt -f /dev/nst0 retension
# mt -f /dev/nst0 rewind

[Floppyman]

Hi,

Thanks for the reply. Well, when I try to use the mt command it say that the command can't be found. Maybe that is what is causing my problems. What do I need to get to be able to use this command? Thanks again.

[Floppyman]

Hi again,

Ok, mt is now installed.

When I do mt -f /dev/st0 stoptions scsi2log

I get no such device.

When I do mt -f /dev/nst0 stoptions scsi2log

I get no such device.

When I do mt -f /dev/hdc stoptions scsi2log

I get Input/Output error.

When I do mt -f /dev/ht0 stoptions scsi2log

I get device or resource busy.

Both st0 and nst0 are present in /dev.

Any ideas? I still think the IDE tape is not being emulated correctly. TIA.

[Floppyman]

Ok I tried a dmesg | grep tape and got this:

ide-tape: hdc <-> ht0: HP COLORADO 5GB rev 2.06
ide-tape: ht0: I/O error, pc = 1a, key = 4, asc = 40, ascq = a0
ide-tape: Can't get tape parameters - assuming some default values
ide-tape: ht0: I/O error, pc = 1a, key = 4, asc = 40, ascq = a0
ide-tape: Can't get block descriptor
ide-tape: hdc <-> ht0: 450KBps, 6*26kB buffer, 4394kB pipeline, 110ms tDSC, DMA
ide-tape: ht0: I/O error, pc = 34, key = 4, asc = 40, ascq = a0
ide-tape: ht0: I/O error, pc = 1, key = 4, asc = 40, ascq = a0
ide-tape: ht0: I/O error, pc = 0, key = 4, asc = 40, ascq = a0
ide-tape: ht0: drive not ready
ide-tape: ht0: I/O error, pc = 34, key = 4, asc = 40, ascq = a0
ide-tape: ht0: I/O error, pc = 1, key = 4, asc = 40, ascq = a0
ide-tape: ht0: I/O error, pc = 0, key = 4, asc = 40, ascq = a0
ide-tape: ht0: drive not ready

Now I basically have the same problems as the guy in the above link (second one). The only problem is that for some reason it appears my drive is not being emulated correctly although I followed the instructions. Is lilo.conf the only file I need to edit to emulate my tape drive or is there another one? (on Mandrake 9.1)? Thanks again.

BTW, now both ide-tape and st modules are loaded.

[Floppyman]

I'm a little bit further. The tape is now being emulated as scsi.

When I do a dmesg | grep tape I get:

Attached scsi tape st0 at scsi2, channel 0, id 1, lun 0

Now when I try to use the mt command though I have problems

When I try mt -f /dev/st0 rewind

I get Input/output error

When I try mt -f /dev/st0 staus

I get Input/output error

When I do mt -f /dev/nst0 stoptions scsi2log I get
/dev/nst0: Input/output error

Any ideas on where to go from here? Thanks again.

[kilgoretrout]

Sounds like it's having trouble reading the tape. Try reformatting the tape in windows and see if that helps. If you want to try to run the tape in scsi emulation, try manually adding and removing the modules:

# rmmod ide-tape
# insmod scsi_mod (probably already loaded)
# insmod ide-scsi (ditto)
# insmod st

Then try:

mt -f /dev/nst0 stoptions scsi2log

Maybe getting rid of the ide-tape module will help the scsi emulation.

[Floppyman]

Hi,

I tried doing everything you suggested (except formatting the tape in windows-- this is a linux only system), and it's still not working. I keep getting the same errors. Should I try getting it to work as IDE without emulation? I'm really stumped here. Maybe there is something else that needs to be installed that is missing? Thanks again.

[Floppyman]

Ok, I removed ide-scsi emulation for the tape drive and also the st module. I loaded up the ide-tape module and when I do dmesg | grep tape I'm back to this:


ide-tape: hdc <-> ht0: HP COLORADO 5GB rev 2.06
ide-tape: ht0: I/O error, pc = 1a, key = 4, asc = 40, ascq = a0
ide-tape: Can't get tape parameters - assuming some default values
ide-tape: ht0: I/O error, pc = 1a, key = 4, asc = 40, ascq = a0
ide-tape: Can't get block descriptor
ide-tape: hdc <-> ht0: 450KBps, 6*26kB buffer, 4394kB pipeline, 110ms tDSC, DMA
ide-tape: ht0: I/O error, pc = 34, key = 4, asc = 40, ascq = a0
ide-tape: ht0: I/O error, pc = 1, key = 4, asc = 40, ascq = a0
ide-tape: ht0: I/O error, pc = 0, key = 4, asc = 40, ascq = a0
ide-tape: ht0: drive not ready
ide-tape: ht0: I/O error, pc = 34, key = 4, asc = 40, ascq = a0
ide-tape: ht0: I/O error, pc = 1, key = 4, asc = 40, ascq = a0
ide-tape: ht0: I/O error, pc = 0, key = 4, asc = 40, ascq = a0
ide-tape: ht0: drive not ready

When I try to access ht0 with the mt command I get device or resource busy. Any ideas?

I feel like I'm starting to go in circles here....

[imbest123]

im confused all this is too much for my brain. lol

[kilgoretrout]

There's no way to format the tape in linux and I really suspect that might be the problem. I recall having to reformat my tapes to get it working. Try googling with linux + your tape drive. That's how I finally got mine working but it was never really reliable in either linux or windows. Always seemed to let me down at critical times. I finally just replaced it with a hard drive for backup and never looked back.

[Floppyman]

Hi kilgoretrout,

Hmmm, it does say the tapes are preformatted. I've already been googling, but I'm not coming up with much. I'm still thinking that there might be something else that needs to be installed for it to work that didn't when I setup Mandrake 9.1. I know the drive is supported as there are others who have it and it works for them. Like I said this is a linux only box so I really can't check it out in windows. Have you got any other ideas? Thanks again.

[kilgoretrout]

Well, your getting an I/O error which I associate with difficulty in reading the media. If your booting with a tape in the drive, try booting without it and vice versa. You might check your jumpering and cabling too. It might be a simple hardware problem. Did the drive work in windows?

[Floppyman]

Well, shortly after the POST the drive becomes active and cycles through the tape, so I know the drive is getting power and it at least appears to be working.

I'm determined to get this working under linux. I think I will try another linux distro though before I resort to testing in windows. I'll also doublecheck my connections.

Say, I do have 2 SCSI hdd's in tha system. Could that somehow affect the SCSI emulation maybe? Thanks again.

[Floppyman]

It's still not working. I think what I'm going to do next is try a dual boot with win2k and another distro (prolly RH9). I'm gonna get this working somehow!