Anyone know how to install an IBM LTO 3 Ultrium tape drive?

What works, and doesn't, for you. Be specific, and please include Puppy version.
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PappyPuppy
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I think I need to reboot

#21 Post by PappyPuppy »

How can the BIOS on the Adaptec SCSI Controller be disabled?
Answer ID 2353 | Published 05/21/2001 06:06 PM | Updated 08/12/2010 08:58 AM
The Adaptec SCSI Controller becomes the priority boot card when installed.

How can the BIOS on the Adaptec SCSI Controller be disabled so it won't attempt to boot over the existing boot controller or onboard chipset?


This information applies to the following Operating System(s):
- This information is not Operating System specific
The SCSI Controller BIOS can be disabled within the SCSI BIOS, via the SCSISelect feature on the SCSI controller.

During the system boot process, you will see the Adaptec BIOS and a prompt to press Ctrl-A to go inside SCSISelect.

Once inside the SCSISelect utility:

Choose the SCSI controller you want to disable the BIOS on and press enter.

Choose Configure / View SCSI Controller Settings and press enter.

Choose Advanced Configuration inside Additional Options area below.

Select SCSI Controller Int 13 Support. This option controls the state of the BIOS at POST time. The following settings are available:

Enabled - Supports INT 13 for booting from a SCSI hard disk drive connected to the SCSI card. If you use this option, the following options are available:
- Extended INT 13 Translation for DOS Drives > 1 GB
- Support Removable Disks Under INT 13 as Fixed Disks
- BIOS Support for Bootable CD-ROM

Disabled:NOT Scan - select this option if all the devices on the SCSI bus are controlled by software drivers and do not need the BIOS, and you do not want the BIOS to scan the SCSI bus. SCSISelect remains available if needed.

Disabled:Scan Bus - select this option if all the devices on the SCSI bus are controlled by software drivers and you need the BIOS to scan the SCSI bus. Allows devices to spin up according to the setting of the Send Start Unit Command. SCSISelect remains available if needed.

Note: Once you have changed the BIOS settings, press "Esc" twice and it will prompt you to save the changes. Press "Esc" again to exit and then restart the system.
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PappyPuppy
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I've changed the Adaptec under Advanced on boot

#22 Post by PappyPuppy »

from running SCSISelect each time. I hope this streamlines things a little at least.

When I ran the Drive Configurator it gave me the message "Not a disk drive" which is correct and it gives me the ID 0 for the IBM ULTRIUM-TD3 and 7 for the Adaptec card.

Firmware of the Tape drive is 6B20

So at least I'm learning.

The computer is booting now without the SCSISelect screen for the first time.

PappyPuppy
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Suppose I wanted to reenable the SCSISelect and using card

#23 Post by PappyPuppy »

Just curious how I would reenable that stuff.

I'm not planning to need that anytime soon. Perhaps I can just run SCSISelect from the command line somehow.??

The computer is rebooted but still no tape drive.

So no kernel drivers are loading.

PappyPuppy
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I may need the source code for the -TD3 drives

#24 Post by PappyPuppy »

I wonder if I can get that source code and recompile?

I have sent a message to someone who had the same problem as me and asked him for the names of the drivers.

PappyPuppy
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I've rebooted into Windows XP

#25 Post by PappyPuppy »

My computer can be booted into Windows XP. I'll work with that for a while while I await any feedback from those who've read my posts and messages - maybe there is a tape tool or driver source that I can compile for Fatdog.

So I will start now to get this to run on Windows. But in the end, I need it to run on Linux.

PappyPuppy
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I am trying to find the IBM manuals from a long list

#26 Post by PappyPuppy »

IBM says that they obsolete their manuals - not sure what that means.

I am still looking for a manual so I can install in windows now while I wait for help with Fatdog Linux.

IBM Ultrium Device Drivers Installation and User’s Guide, GC32-0430-13

I need the above manual. I cannot find it.

PappyPuppy
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Under device manager, I see a yellow question mark

#27 Post by PappyPuppy »

So I wonder if I can update the drivers for this and get it to recognize it?

It says that this device is working properly.

I have no program to use in windows yet. So that's another job. I wonder if it is really working properly. Why doesn't it list it as a tape drive? Apparently it doesn't know that it's a tape drive but it says it's working properly. I guess I need to check for drivers. If it really has a driver? It says Driver Provider: Unknown, I don't think it's really working.

PappyPuppy
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I can't get it to work on Windows XP either

#28 Post by PappyPuppy »

But I will be busy for the day, so I'm not on this for a bit. I'm not making any progress. I wonder though, did another company develop stuff that will work on IBM's tape system. Like firmware/software, or even hardware. Am I looking in the wrong place for drivers for the IBM tape drive.

PappyPuppy
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Implementing IBM Tape in Linux and Windows

#29 Post by PappyPuppy »

I hope that this document was written soon enough for the release of my tape drive. My tape drive was manufactured in 2007 although I think that model was available as early as late 2005 or 2006. These are details that may be important. This (October 2005) is the Fourth edition of the above manual, started in 2002. I am trying to point my helper(s) in the direction I'm going as I was hoping to finish this by Friday and it's now Sunday. Such is life.

Windows XP came out in late 2001 I believe? A little later than Windows 2000 but before Windows 2003. The reason I mention this is just that the overall hardware/software platforms they supported can sometimes come into play. I will make a call tomorrow to a "helper" I spoke with once already and see what "platform(s)" he uses. This might help also.

But page 183 of that manual describes what to do for Linux. I will start reading that now.

There is an issue of which manual to read or should I just read what I can find, so I will at least take a look at that and see if I can follow it and get it to work.

Thanks for any help. And this is my only thread for this forum. The others are locked so please if you have some smarts or whatever, post it here, thanks. :D

PappyPuppy
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Narrowing down which set of documents are for my reader

#30 Post by PappyPuppy »

SLES12, SLES11, RHEL7, RHEL6, Archives
Update: The above refer to Enterprise Linux Server, and Redhat, so I would guess I'll be in Archives or possibly one of the other. I don't know yet.

I am trying to see which set of Fixit Central archives to go through. In the previous post I mention page 183. On page 184, they suggest reading over some documents - if I navigate to IBM's ftp site, and drill down to storage/devdrvr/Doc, the Doc has been replaced with a link to an http site FixIt Central. I'm going through that now.

So two mysteries:
1) Which document is for my reader?
2) Why is my Ultrium reader, a 23R4762 never, ever mentioned anywhere but the IBM 3580 series ARE mentioned. This is what I'm trying to figure out - where is my reader mentioned - that would help.

PappyPuppy
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I need to search for kernel support in the form of st driver

#31 Post by PappyPuppy »

I may have to simply walk the system through creating the st drive. Perhaps I have support and something is just not there that automatically detects something. Perhaps even a parameter in the Adaptec, like 16 eg. for bus, should that be 32. I doubt it but it's not impossible that some LUN feature or whatever isn't there but maybe I can mknod and get a device up that way. I don't know yet until I try to look for the tape drive support. If it's there, I can start trying stuff.

PappyPuppy
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Output of modinfo command

#32 Post by PappyPuppy »

When I run the command modinfo st, it DOES list tape drive support:

filename: /lib/modules/4.4.35/kernel/drivers/scsi/st.ko
alias: ...
alias: ...
license: ...
description: SCSI tape (st) driver

So I have support for tape drives in my Fatdog 710 kernel.

So I should create a device /dev/st0

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Flash
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#33 Post by Flash »

I don't know if this is any help, but I believe that Linux only mounts filesystems, not devices. If there is no tape in the drive, there can be no filesystem to mount. Same as a DVD drive without a DVD in it.

PappyPuppy
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Thanks for the info - I've tried mounting a tape

#34 Post by PappyPuppy »

When I insert a CD, an icon for SR0 appears on the Fatdog desktop.

When I insert a tape, nothing appears. But perhaps I need to tell the boot-up process something - this is over my head but I need to begin to try things.

This causes me concern, as I would expect it to show the icon when I insert a tape. So I need to debug and/or work around this problem.

I just have to keep understanding it. Trying stuff might have to wait until I read more - like, what parameters will I give the mknod command, anyway? I am about to mknod --help or whatever now.

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#35 Post by rockedge »

here is a manual I had in some corner of storage...maybe it might help
http://rockedge.org/images2/IBM_Tape_De ... er_IUG.pdf

PappyPuppy
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I just ran lsmod | grep 'st' and got nothing

#36 Post by PappyPuppy »

I'll look at it again, and see if I can use it's advice. In the meantime, I mention below that I might modprobe the drivers.

So now I REALLY KNOW that the st drivers are not loaded. And in /dev/fd there are two unknown devices. Perhaps one is the tape and the other the cartridge memory. I'm not sure but at least now I know that the tape driver kernel type support is not loaded.

So I might try to modprobe st and load it just to see iif I can get any further.
I must admit, I'm really, really stuck and I'm now going through every single Internet link that deals with what to do if your controller picks up the tape drive but the operating system does not. That's basically where I am. I think most of the parameters of the controller are ok. I hope that's true.

PappyPuppy
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Now I have st 44563 0

#37 Post by PappyPuppy »

I ran the modprobe command and I now have the st driver loaded. It is 44,563 bytes in size. And it has 0 "Used by"

I also just accidentally but (it's a GOOD thing) modprobed sg.

I have also loaded the generic driver sg. As long as I don't mix calls too much, I can have both loaded. I might just experiment with both drivers.

My tape drive's MAM memory can be accessed by either driver I'm sure.
I'm not interested in the tape, only the cartridge memory anyway.

PappyPuppy
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I'm hoping that I can now rescan or something

#38 Post by PappyPuppy »

I need to figure out how to make the Adaptec SCSI or the Linux kernel rescan for all scsi devices or something like that.

There are Linux commands both for discovering new devices as well as for refinding old ones. I just need to understand the parameters and run the one to discover new devices.

PappyPuppy
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WOW! I ran the command 9 times in a row

#39 Post by PappyPuppy »

echo "- - -" > /sys/class/scsi_host/host0/scan. Then each time I added 1 to the number on the word hostx after host/.
So the 2nd time was echo "- - -" > /sys/class/scsi_host/host1/scan, and so forth.

Note: there has to be a space between each dash or the command fails with bad parameter or something.

Between host0 and host6, the command just returned very quickly. But I peeked into host7 and host8 and I could tell that they were empty and waiting, and when I ran each of those, the command took about 6 seconds or so to run. And voila!

I now have [8:0:0:0] tape IBM ULTRIUM-TD3 6B20 /dev/st0 showing when I run the command lsscsi.

I do NOT see an icon on the screen but perhaps I need to also run some script for that. I also notice that there is a scsi_tape specific directory. So now hopefully, I can try some other command and start doing something with the MAM on the cartridge. Progress!

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#40 Post by Flash »

Good news! Keep us posted. :)

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