cannot share HP Tape changer

Tape drive and auto-loader redirector over iSCSI

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chris

Fri Nov 19, 2004 11:53 am

i try to share HP-DLT Changer on my windows 2000 machine.
but i cannot find it in the device list
i tried to add with \\.\Changer0 1 2 but it doesnt work.
any help ?
Val (staff)
Posts: 496
Joined: Tue Jun 29, 2004 8:38 pm

Fri Nov 19, 2004 10:24 pm

chris wrote:i try to share HP-DLT Changer on my windows 2000 machine.
but i cannot find it in the device list
i tried to add with \\.\Changer0 1 2 but it doesnt work.
any help ?
Hi Chris,

Are you sure a ChangerX device should support tape changers?

One of our customers successfully used \\.\ChangerX to share a CD/DVD-ROM changer device.
http://www.starwindsoftware.com/forums/ ... c.php?t=73
Best regards,
Valeriy
Val (staff)
Posts: 496
Joined: Tue Jun 29, 2004 8:38 pm

Fri Nov 19, 2004 11:34 pm

Chris,

We've investigated a bit about tape changers.
It looks like your tape drive should be a \\.\TapeX as usual.
And the changer device should be named as a \\.\ChangerY

We have no tape changers near us to check their behaviour.

Maybe the following link inclues some info about this:
http://www.microsoft.com/resources/docu ... _tools.asp
Best regards,
Valeriy
dscheck
Posts: 6
Joined: Tue Apr 04, 2006 9:20 pm

Tue Apr 04, 2006 9:22 pm

Any new information about tape changers? I have two HP Surestore 718 I would like to share as my backup server is a blade and there is not a way to install a scsi adapter.
Val (staff)
Posts: 496
Joined: Tue Jun 29, 2004 8:38 pm

Tue Apr 04, 2006 10:20 pm

dscheck wrote:Any new information about tape changers? I have two HP Surestore 718 I would like to share as my backup server is a blade and there is not a way to install a scsi adapter.
Tape changers should work, you could try it wth the recent StarWind 3.0.

Please let us know if you need any help with StarWind.
Best regards,
Valeriy
dscheck
Posts: 6
Joined: Tue Apr 04, 2006 9:20 pm

Wed Apr 05, 2006 3:00 pm

Valery,

I'm using Starwing 3.0 Build 20060306

I cannot add the device \\.\ChangerX

I choose SPTI as device type and I receive the following error

Cannot add device.
Device test failed for '\\.\ChangerX'.


Here is a part of the log file.

4/5 10:49:17 c98 SPTI: '\\.\Changer5': sessions: 1.
4/5 10:49:17 c98 SPTI: '\\.\Changer5': Cannot open the device: The system cannot find the file specified. (code: 2).
4/5 10:49:17 c98 S: *ERROR* cannot open the device '\\.\Changer5'.
4/5 10:49:17 c98 Srv: * Device test failed for '\\.\Changer5'.
4/5 10:49:17 c98 conf: Device test failed for '\\.\Changer5'.

Any suggestions?

Thanks

Doug
Val (staff)
Posts: 496
Joined: Tue Jun 29, 2004 8:38 pm

Wed Apr 05, 2006 3:15 pm

Doug,

are you sure your changer device is '\\.\Changer5' ?
Have you tried '\\.\Changer0', 1, so on?

Also you could try to use 'Share R/W' option when creating the changer target.
Best regards,
Valeriy
dscheck
Posts: 6
Joined: Tue Apr 04, 2006 9:20 pm

Wed Apr 05, 2006 4:16 pm

I have tried \\.\Changer0 thru \\.\Changer5

all with the same results

I receive the same message using Share R/W option.

Any other thoughts?

Thanks
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anton (staff)
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Wed Apr 05, 2006 7:56 pm

Are you sure your changer is mapped via "Changer" symbolic link? Did you try "Tape" as Valery suggested already?
dscheck wrote:I have tried \\.\Changer0 thru \\.\Changer5

all with the same results

I receive the same message using Share R/W option.

Any other thoughts?

Thanks
Regards,
Anton Kolomyeytsev

Chief Technology Officer & Chief Architect, StarWind Software

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dscheck
Posts: 6
Joined: Tue Apr 04, 2006 9:20 pm

Wed Apr 05, 2006 8:20 pm

Anton,

I have \\.\Tape0 and \\.\Tape1 mapped already and they work fine. Actually they showed up in the list, should I remove these and then try the changer symbolic link?

I need is to be able to use the changers along with the tape drives.

These is one tape drive in each HP Tape Changer.

Hope this helps.

Doug
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anton (staff)
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Wed Apr 05, 2006 8:27 pm

Unfortunately it does not... We need to know device name before we'll share it. For now please try to bug HP support with it (there should be GUID-like one and human-readable one, we need second one) and we'll try to write down additional utility to enumerate device names by class.
dscheck wrote:Anton,

I have \\.\Tape0 and \\.\Tape1 mapped already and they work fine. Actually they showed up in the list, should I remove these and then try the changer symbolic link?

I need is to be able to use the changers along with the tape drives.

These is one tape drive in each HP Tape Changer.

Hope this helps.

Doug
Regards,
Anton Kolomyeytsev

Chief Technology Officer & Chief Architect, StarWind Software

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Val (staff)
Posts: 496
Joined: Tue Jun 29, 2004 8:38 pm

Wed Apr 05, 2006 8:36 pm

dscheck wrote:Anton,

I have \\.\Tape0 and \\.\Tape1 mapped already and they work fine. Actually they showed up in the list, should I remove these and then try the changer symbolic link?

I need is to be able to use the changers along with the tape drives.

These is one tape drive in each HP Tape Changer.

Hope this helps.

Doug
Doug,

Are the changer devices recognized by the local system and visible in the Device Manager?
Also it's possible that they use their own proprietary interface, not supported by Windows directly.
What is the software that works with the changers?
Best regards,
Valeriy
dscheck
Posts: 6
Joined: Tue Apr 04, 2006 9:20 pm

Wed Apr 05, 2006 9:13 pm

The changers are recognizes by Windows Server 2003.

They are connected to an Adaptec 29160 SCSI Controller.

They show up under the Medium Changers category in Device manager. They are listed as HP Tape Library.

Microsoft backup can use them, or I can install any backup software that supports tape libararies and use them.

I am checking with HP to see if I can get any more info.


Thanks

Doug
dscheck
Posts: 6
Joined: Tue Apr 04, 2006 9:20 pm

Fri Apr 07, 2006 2:42 pm

No luck finding anything from HP, but I did learn that it is the O/S that assigns the scsi device names.

So now I just need to find out how Windows server 2003 names it's devices.
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anton (staff)
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Fri Apr 07, 2006 10:12 pm

Please drop us a message to info@rocketdivision.com and we'd issue you with a tool to enumerate created storage device names. Thanks!
Regards,
Anton Kolomyeytsev

Chief Technology Officer & Chief Architect, StarWind Software

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