Checking the Hardware

Checking the Hardware

Use the hinv command to see if the operating system recognized the tape drive at boot time. This is one of the most basic and critical tests to check hardware. (An output similar to the following is returned with the hinv command):

Iris Audio Processor: version A2 revision 4.1.0
1 100 MHZ IP22 Processor
FPU: MIPS R4010 Floating Point Chip Revision: 0.0
CPU: MIPS R4000 Processor Chip Revision: 3.0
On-board serial ports: 2
On-board bi-directional parallel port
Data cache size: 8 Kbytes
Instruction cache size: 8 Kbytes
Secondary unified instruction/data cache size: 1 Mbyte
Main memory size: 64 Mbytes
Integral Ethernet: ec0, version 1
Integral SCSI controller 0: Version WD33C93B, revision D
CDROM: unit 4 on SCSI controller 0
Disk drive: unit 1 on SCSI controller 0
Graphics board: Indy 24-bit
Vino video: unit 0, revision 0, Indycam connected

If hinv does not report an attached tape drive, then your operating system can not use the drive. You need to check the installation of the hardware. What you can do at this time depends on what you can do with your computer given your maintenance support agreements.

Simple hardware checks are:

If the tape drive is an external unit, does it have power? Simply powering it on does not cause it to be seen by the computer. The system must be shut down, power cycled, then rebooted.
During the boot phase, do you see the access light on the tape drive light up at all? If it doesn't flash at all, chances are the operating system is still not seeing the drive.
Is the SCSI cabling and termination correct? If visual inspection shows nothing obvious, try resetting the connectors. Any movement of hardware or cabling must be done with the system powered off.

If nothing that you do here causes hinv to report the tape drive, then the most likely problem is faulty hardware. Contact your support provider.