does anyone know anything about scsi hardware? I have an Exabyte VXA-2 tape drive connected to a linux server. It says the drive is open but it's not. Linux sees it but i can't interact with the tape drive (scsi 68 pin LVD). The tape drive has a terminator (has a red light on). The Adaptec scsi card is set to automatic termination (default selection, there's no other option). At first when i got a parity error i changed the bios 'enable wide negotiaion'->No and that error disappeared. Then when i dmesg | grep st0 i got NEW ERRORS! A whole bunch of "sense key Not Ready" errors. I went on the Adaptec site and changed my bios' 'Send Start Unit Command' to YES and the sense key Not Ready errors were just halved, but did not go away completely. scsi adapter: Adaptec 2940UW (module AIC7xxx is loaded) Linux version 2.6.5-1.358 (Fedora) root]# dmesg | grep st0 Attached scsi tape st0 at scsi1, channel 0, id 4, lun 0 st0: try direct i/o: yes (alignment 512 B), max page reachable by HBA 1048575 st0: Error with sense data: Current st0: sense key Not Ready st0: Mode 0 options: buffer writes: 1, async writes: 1, read ahead: 1 st0: can bsr: 1, two FMs: 0, fast mteom: 0, auto lock: 0, st0: defs for wr: 0, no block limits: 1, partitions: 0, s2 log: 1 st0: sysv: 0 nowait: 0 st0: Error with sense data: Current st0: sense key Not Ready st0: Compression default set to 1 st0: Default block size set to 0 bytes. st0: Error with sense data: Current st0: sense key Not Ready root]# cat /proc/scsi/scsi Attached devices: Host: scsi0 Channel: 00 Id: 09 Lun: 00 Vendor: HP Model: 9.10GB C 80-P84D Rev: P84D Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 02 Host: scsi0 Channel: 00 Id: 10 Lun: 00 Vendor: HP Model: 18.2GB C 80-P84D Rev: P84D Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 02 Host: scsi1 Channel: 00 Id: 00 Lun: 00 Vendor: EXABYTE Model: VXA 1x10 1U Rev: A102 Type: Medium Changer ANSI SCSI revision: 04 Host: scsi1 Channel: 00 Id: 04 Lun: 00 Vendor: EXABYTE Model: VXA-2 Rev: 2100 Type: Sequential-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 02 root]# dmesg | grep scsi scsi0 : sym-2.1.18j scsi(0:0:9:0): Beginning Domain Validation scsi(0:0:9:0): Ending Domain Validation Attached scsi disk sda at scsi0, channel 0, id 9, lun 0 scsi(0:0:10:0): Beginning Domain Validation scsi(0:0:10:0): Ending Domain Validation Attached scsi disk sdb at scsi0, channel 0, id 10, lun 0 scsi1 : Adaptec AIC7XXX EISA/VLB/PCI SCSI HBA DRIVER, Rev 6.2.36 (scsi1:A:0): 10.000MB/s transfers (10.000MHz, offset 14) (scsi1:A:4): 10.000MB/s transfers (10.000MHz, offset 14) Attached scsi tape st0 at scsi1, channel 0, id 4, lun 0 Attached scsi generic sg0 at scsi1, channel 0, id 0, lun 0, type 8 root]# mt -f /dev/st0 status SCSI 2 tape drive: File number=-1, block number=-1, partition=0. Tape block size 0 bytes. Density code 0x0 (default). Soft error count since last status=0 General status bits on (50000): DR_OPEN IM_REP_EN root]# /sbin/lsmod Module Size Used by ....[bunch of other stuff] aic7xxx 135864 0 sym53c8xx 64036 4 scsi_transport_spi 9856 1 sym53c8xx sd_mod 16384 6 scsi_mod 91344 6 sg,st,aic7xxx,sym53c8xx,scsi_transport_spi,sd_mod anyone got any ideas, mad props toya.

ok so it works now and the error messages disappeared. I actually made several changes to the bios and tape drive at once so i don't know which change was the magic one, my bad. But in case anyone else out there gets those errors these are my settings (SCSI Select Adaptec 2940UW, I guess I messed around with the BIOS a bit too much without knowing what those settings actually did, when i connected the drive and forgot to put some settings back) I reset Mutiple-LUN Support, and Send Start Unit Command to DISABLED I reset Initiate Wide Negotiation to YES (default setting) I changed the SCSI IDs of the autoloader (0) and tape drive (4) to 5 and 6 respectively. I manually loaded the tape drive on the exabyte vxa-2 machine [got rid of the "DR_OPEN" message] I thought I would be able to do that from the terminal [mt -f /dev/st0 load] but that didn't work and i got st0: input/output error. I still dont' know how to load using the mt commands...ah well i'll figure that out.

actually i still get errors: prompt$dmesg | grep st0 Attached scsi tape st0 at scsi1, channel 0, id 6, lun 0 st0: try direct i/o: yes (alignment 512 B), max page reachable by HBA 1048575 st0: Block limits 1 - 245760 bytes. st0: Error with sense data: Current st0: sense key Not Ready st0: Error with sense data: Current st0: sense key Not Ready st0: Error with sense data: Current st0: sense key Not Ready st0: Error with sense data: Current st0: sense key Not Ready but the tape drive seems to be working...i can write/read/restore data....go figure.