[ale] Failing device?

[James P. Kinney III]

It does look like a failing device. It could be either the controller or
the tape drive. The controller generates the error message so it's hard
to diagnose where the exact issue is. 

Put on a different tape drive with a different scsi ID. Remove the
current drive. If it still fails, it's the controller.

Likewise, put the drive on a different box and controller and test it.

There are gizmos that can connect to a scsi chain and "sniff" data for
analysis. They are not cheap, though. Seems to me a second linux box
with a known good scsi controller and a special driver would work but
I'm not up for hacking the scsi driver :)

On Thu, 2002-12-12 at 08:40, Robert L. Harris wrote:
> I've started getting alot of these:
> 
> sym53c875-3-<5,*>: FAST-10 WIDE SCSI 20.0 MB/s (100.0 ns, offset 15)
> sym53c875-3-<5,*>: FAST-10 WIDE SCSI 20.0 MB/s (100.0 ns, offset 15)
> sym53c875-3-<4,*>: FAST-10 WIDE SCSI 20.0 MB/s (100.0 ns, offset 15)
> scsi : aborting command due to timeout : pid 9572404, scsi3, channel 0, id 3, lun 0 Inquiry 00 00 00 ff 00
> sym53c8xx_abort: pid=9572404 serial_number=9572395 serial_number_at_timeout=9572395
> sym53c875-3-<5,*>: FAST-10 WIDE SCSI 20.0 MB/s (100.0 ns, offset 15)
> 
> sym53c875-3-<[345],*> are the scsi id's assigned to my tape drives.  3
> on one chain, terminated with a terminator.  In the past I've swapped
> out cables, trying changing one cable for another, etc, no difference.
> The box will behave for a few days and then this.  The tape drives are
> in an Overland DLT library setup.
> 
> scsi3, id3 is a tape drive that currently shows it is trying to verify a
> label in legato.  The process using this device is now hung, can't kill
> it (remember "how to kill an unkillable" ?) and it's holding up my
> backups.  
> 
> Need expert opinions, is this a dying tape drive or a bad tape somehow
> messing up my system?
> 
> Robert
> 
> 
> 
> 
> :wq!
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Robert L. Harris                     | PGP Key ID: FC96D405
>                                
> DISCLAIMER:
>       These are MY OPINIONS ALONE.  I speak for no-one else.
> FYI:
>  perl -e 'print $i=pack(c5,(41*2),sqrt(7056),(unpack(c,H)-2),oct(115),10);'
> 
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-- 
James P. Kinney III   \Changing the mobile computing world/
President and CEO      \          one Linux user         /
Local Net Solutions,LLC \           at a time.          /
770-493-8244             \.___________________________./

GPG ID: 829C6CA7 James P. Kinney III (M.S. Physics) <jkinney at localnetsolutions.com>
Fingerprint = 3C9E 6366 54FC A3FE BA4D 0659 6190 ADC3 829C 6CA7 



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