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Document:	AN-042
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CHARON-VAX application note
AN-42 Tape devices usage in CHARON-VAX
Author: Software Resources International

Date:

05-May-2006

Before using a physical tape drive with CHARON-VAX read these recommendations on how
to configure tape devices.
For the purpose of this subject tapes drives fall into two categories:
•

Physical drives with a SCSI interface that have a corresponding Windows system
driver (e.g. TLZ07, TLZ08, TLZ09)

•

Older physical drives that do not have a driver but have a SCSI interface and are
presented to the operating system as a pure SCSI device (e.g. TQK50, TQK70)

The first group may use the system driver or be addressed as a raw SCSI device; the second
group may only be addressed as a raw SCSI device.
The latest version of the SCSI check utility can be downloaded from Software Resources
International website at www.softresint.com under VAX emulators downloads/utilities.

Configuring the tape drive via system driver in Windows
Configure the tape drive as follows:
1. Install the appropriate driver for the SCSI adapter installed on your system and make
sure that it is displayed correctly in the Device Manager and has no relevant errors.
2. Install the tape driver or connect the tape drive to your system to let the system
choose the appropriate driver automatically.
3. Connect the tape drive to the system and check that the tape device is displayed as it
should be in the "Device Manager" applet:

©2006 Software Resources International. This document is provided for information only and is not a legally binding offer.
Software Resources International reserves the right to change the product specifications without prior notice or retire the
product. The CHARON name and its logo are a registered trademark of Software Resources International.

CHARON-VAX application note
Make sure that the type of the tape is displayed correctly, implying that the correct
driver has been installed.
4. Run the SCSI_check utility and go to the section "Tape drives". All the available tape
drives are shown here in the form "\\.\Tape<x>", where x is the tape device number
assigned by the operating system. Note that only the devices marked with green can
be used by CHARON:

5. Select the tape drive and press "Copy path to clipboard" button. If the utility does not
show any tape device make sure that the tape device is known to the system. Open
the "Device Manager" again and make sure that the tape drive is found and displayed
correctly.
6. Open the CHARON configuration file and paste the content of the clipboard to the
expected name of the tape device. Note that there are 3 types of VAX tape devices
that can work with the tape drives mapped via system driver – SCSI tapes
("physical_scsi_device"), TMSCP tapes ("TQK50") and KDM70 tapes ("kdm70").
Below are example configurations for "physical_scsi_device", "TQK50" and "kdm70":
a. physical_scsi_device. This device is available in the SCSI systems
emulators such as MicroVAX 3100 model 96 and in the combined SCSI-Qbus
systems such as VAX4000 model 106. Create an instance of the
"physical_scsi_device" and assign the tape drive ("\\.\Tape<x>") to it as it is
shown in the following example (for the first tape drive installed on the
system):
load physical_scsi_device/chscsi pka_0 scsi_bus=pka scsi_id=0
set pka_0 container="\\.\Tape0"
In this example the tape drive will appear in the OpenVMS running on
emulated VAX as MKA0 ("0" – according to the SCSI address, "A" – since
this unit is connected to the first SCSI adapter installed on this system - PKA).
Adjust the SCSI addresses (note that the address "7" is used by the emulated
SCSI adapter itself – this address can be changed from the SRM console)
and switch "PKA"/"PKB" in the "scsi_bus" parameter to create the desired
configuration.
b. KDM70. This device is available in VAX66x0 systems such as VAX6610,
VAX6620, etc. KDM70 is combined MSCP/TMSCP controller, able to support
disks and tapes. To map the tape drive to VAX66x0 create an instance of
KDM70 controller and assign the tape drive ("\\.\Tape<x>") to it as it is shown
in the following example (for the first tape drive installed on the system):

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CHARON-VAX application note
load KDM70/KDM70 DUA xmi_node_id=11
set DUA container[3]="\\.\Tape0"
In this example the tape drive will appear in the OpenVMS running on
emulated VAX as MUA300 ("300" – according to the KDM70 unit number (3)
and "A" – since this unit is connected to the first KDM70 adapter installed on
this system).
Note that VAX66x0 supports only the tape devices that can be mapped to
CHARON only via system driver. No raw SCSI mapping is allowed in this
case.
c. TQK50. This device is available in the Qbus systems emulators such as
MicroVAX II, MicroVAX 3600 and in the combined SCSI-Qbus systems such
as VAX4000 model 106. User should create an instance of "TQK50" and
assign the tape drive ("\\.\Tape<x>") to it as it is shown in the following
example (for the first tape drive installed on the system):
load TQK50/TQK50 MUA
set MUA container[0]= "\\.\Tape0"
In this example the tape drive will appear in the OpenVMS running on
emulated VAX as MUA0 (0 – according to the container index). Note that the
letter of the adapter (A, B, C…) is defined only by its Qbus address, not by the
name used in the CHARON configuration file. Use the "configure" utility
started from the SRM console to find out desired Qbus address to specify it in
the configuration file.

Configuring the tape drive as a raw SCSI device in Windows
Configure the tape drive as a raw SCSI device as follows:
1. Install an appropriate driver for the SCSI adapter on your system and make sure that
it is displayed correctly in the Device Manager and has no relevant errors.
2. Connect the tape drive to the system and make sure that the tape device is displayed
as raw SCSI device in the "Device Manager" applet.

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CHARON-VAX application note
If for some reasons you decided to use modern tape drive just as a raw SCSI device
it’s absolutely required firstly to disable the tape drive in the Device Manager and
then reboot the system. The disabled tape drive is shown in the "Device Manager"
like this:

3. In case of the tape drives that do not have associated driver click with right button of
the mouse on the "SCSI Sequential Device". Collect the SCSI address (Target ID),
LUN (usually 0) and the bus number (usually 0) from the appearing dialog box:

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CHARON-VAX application note
It’s also possible to collect the SCSI address by looking directly at jumpers settings on
the drive.
To collect the SCSI port, open up "Registry Editor" (regedit.exe) and go to "My
Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\HARDWARE\DEVICEMAP\Scsi". There you will
find the target tape device looking at different ports.

Once the desired item is found note its "Scsi Port" number.
If the tape drives that has an associated driver, but the idea is to use this tape drive
as a raw SCSI device firstly look at the "Removable Storage" branch in the "Storage"
applet:

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CHARON-VAX application note
and locate the tape drive and click on it with right button of mouse. The following
dialog will appear. (Note that this operation must be performed before disabling this
tape device according to (2).):

There you can collect the SCSI port, Bus, Target and LUN. Once this data has been
captured disable the tape drive in the "Device Manager".
4. Specify raw SCSI tape drives in the CHARON configuration file in the form of
"\\.\scsi<x>:<y>:<z>", where "x" stands for the host SCSI Port, "y" – for a bus number
and "z" – for connected device SCSI address (Target). If the tape drive has separate
units, the desired number must be added to the end: "\\.\scsi<x>:<y>:<z>:<u>",
where "u" is LUN.
5. The SCSI_check utility may be able to display the raw SCSI tape drives. Open up
SCSSI_check and go to "Unknown devices". There you may see the tape drive
specified in the raw SCSI form. If it is there select it (check the SCSI address before
copying to make sure that the proper device will be addressed) and press "Copy path
to clipboard" button.
6. Paste the content of the clipboard to the tape device in the CHARON configuration
file. Note that there are 2 types of VAX tape devices – SCSI tapes
("physical_scsi_device") and TMSCP tapes ("TQK50"), which can be mapped to raw
SCSI tapes, connected to CHARON host. Below are example configurations both for
"physical_scsi_device" and "tqk50":
a. physical_scsi_device. This device is available in the SCSI systems
emulators such as MicroVAX3100 model 96 and in the combined SCSI-Qbus
systems such as VAX4000 model 106. Create an instance of
"physical_scsi_device" and assign the tape drive "\\.\scsi<x>:<y>:<z>") to it as
it is shown in the following example (for the first tape drive installed on the
system):

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CHARON-VAX application note
load physical_scsi_device/chscsi pka_0 scsi_bus=pka scsi_id=0
set pka_0 container="\\.\scsi1:0:4"
In this example the tape drive will appear in the OpenVMS running on
emulated VAX as MKA0 ("0" – according to the SCSI address, "A" – since
this unit is connected to the first SCSI adapter installed on this system - PKA).
Adjust the SCSI addresses (note that the address "7" is used by the emulated
SCSI adapter itself – this address can be changed from the SRM console)
and switch "PKA"/"PKB" in the "scsi_bus" parameter to create the desired
configuration.
b. TQK50. This device is available in the Qbus systems emulators such as
MicroVAX II, MicroVAX 3600 and in the combined SCSI-Qbus systems such
as VAX4000. User should create an instance of "TQK50" and assign the tape
drive ("\\.\scsi<x>:<y>:<z>") to it as it is shown in the following example (for
the first tape drive installed on the system):
load TQK50/TQK50 MUA
set MUA container[0]= "\\.\scsi1:0:4"
In this example the tape drive will appear in the OpenVMS running on
emulated VAX as MUA0 (0 – according to the container index). Note that the
letter of the adapter (A, B, C…) is defined only by its Qbus address, not by the
name used in the CHARON configuration file. Use "configure" utility started
from the SRM console to find out desired Qbus address to specify it in the
configuration file.

Mapping physical tape drives for use with CHARON-VAX on
OpenVMS/Alpha
To configure the tape drive to be used by the AXP version of CHARON-VAX do the following:
1. Collect the name of the available tape devices with "SHOW DEVICE MK" command
Example:
> show device mk
Device

Device

Error

Volume

Free

Trans Mnt

Name

Status

Count

Label

Blocks

Count Cnt

MKA600:

Online

In the example above we see that the tape drive with a name "MKA600" is available
for mapping to CHARON. Note that the device must be online and there should be no
errors associated with it (see the "Error Count").
It is also important to be sure that this tape device is 100% operational. To check it
perform all the operations listed in the "Testing the mapped tape devices" chapter of
this Application Note before mapping this device to CHARON.
2. Map the tape device to CHARON as it’s shown before. Use the name collected at the
previous step. The following are 2 examples on mapping the OpenVMS tape device
MKA600 to "physical_scsi_device" (for MicroVAX3198 emulator) and to "kdm70" (for
VAX66x0 emulators).
Example 1 (physical_scsi_device):
load physical_scsi_device pka_0 scsi_bus=pka scsi_id=0
set pka_0 container="MKA600:"

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CHARON-VAX application note
Example 2 (kdm70):
load KDM70 DUA xmi_node_id=11
set DUA container[3]= "MKA600:"

Testing the mapped tape devices
Once the tape device has been configured correctly according to the descriptions above it
will be used under OpenVMS running on the emulated VAX exactly as used under OpenVMS
running on hardware VAXen. There is no difference in the managing of the tape drive.
To test the mapped drive you should check the following:
1. Tape drive is seen correctly in the OpenVMS running on CHARON-VAX
2. The tape drive has correct name and the status of the device is "online". You can
check this with "SHOW DEV M" command
3. It’s possible to perform usual tape operations: mounting of tapes, reading Files-11
tapes, listing backups residing on tapes, backuping and restoring backups, dismount
of the tapes. All those operations should go flawless without any error messages in
the CHARON log file.
Tips for analyzing tape problems
The following table reflects typical problems a user may face trying to map CHARON tape
devices to physical tape drives on the host system.

Error message is log file

Description

Proposed
resolution

20060226:135907:ERROR:2:000001B8:winspti.cx( 457): The tape device
(2) The system cannot find the file specified. : pka_2: was
specified
Failed to connect logical unit 0 to \\.\Tape1.
incorrectly in the
configuration file
20060226:135907:ERROR:2:000001BA:winspti.cx( 841):
– there is no such
pka_2: Does not have any containers specified. The device
tape device in the
is set offline and is not available.
system.

Review the name
of the tape device.
Correct it in the
configuration file.

20060226:153654:ERROR:2:000001BE:winspti.cx(2486): The tape device is
(1167) The device is not connected. : pka_2: I/O not connected or
operation (01093368) @pka_2/0 (0@00000000) > failed.
some connection
problem
. . . (00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00)
happened.
20060226:153654:ERROR:2:000001BE:winspti.cx(2486):
(1167) The device is not connected. : pka_2: I/O
operation (010935F8) @pka_2/0 (255@06CC0000) <
failed.

Check connection
to the tape device.
Make sure that it
is turned on

. . . (1A 00 10 00 FF 00 00 00 00 00)
20060226:164105:ERROR:2:000001BE:winspti.cx(2486): This error means
(1) Incorrect function. : pka_2: I/O operation (01093398) conflicts
on
@pka_2/0 (0@00000000) > failed.
system
level
caused by the fact
. . . (00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00)
that
while
20060226:164105:ERROR:2:000001BE:winspti.cx(2486): CHARON is using
(1) Incorrect function. : pka_2: I/O operation (01093628) tape drive as raw
Page 8 of 9

Disable
tape
device as shown
above and re-boot
the host system.

CHARON-VAX application note
@pka_2/0 (255@06CC0000) < failed.

SCSI device, it is
still known to the
. . . (1A 00 10 00 FF 00 00 00 00 00)
system as usual
20060226:164136:ERROR:2:000001BE:winspti.cx(2486): tape device.
(1) Incorrect function. : pka_2: I/O operation (010938B8)
@pka_2/0 (0@00000000) > failed.
. . . (00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00)
20060226:164136:ERROR:2:000001BE:winspti.cx(2486):
(1) Incorrect function. : pka_2: I/O operation (01093B48)
@pka_2/0 (0@00000000) > failed.
. . . (01 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00)
Sometimes it’s turned out that working through system driver does not cover all the functions
required from a certain tape drive. In this case it’s recommended to switch to usage of the
tape drive as raw SCSI device.

A table of tested combinations
The following table reflects tested tape drives, Operating Systems and recommendations (if
any) on mapping.

Tape drive model

Mapping specifics

TQK50

Windows XP,
Windows 2003

Mapping as raw SCSI device only. No working
through system driver is possible.

TQK70

Windows XP,
Windows 2003

Mapping as raw SCSI device only. No working
through system driver is possible.

TLZ07

Windows XP,
Windows 2003

Both direct mapping (using system driver) and raw
SCSI device mapping work Ok.

TLZ09

Windows XP,
Windows 2003

Both direct mapping (using system driver) and raw
SCSI device mapping work Ok.

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