RE: DASD PUMP failure (was:RAID failure)

[Neil Palmer <npalmer@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

        -----Original Message-----
        From:   Al Barsa, Jr. [SMTP:barsa2@ibm.net]
        Sent:   Wednesday, January 28, 1998 8:08 AM
        To:     MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com
        Subject:        DASD PUMP failure (was:RAID failure) 

        At 05:41 PM 1/27/98 -0700, you wrote:
        >
        >I did have one occasion several years ago where they came to me
and said
        >they had tried the pump but it failed.  When I went to look it
had
        >failed because of a media error on the tape.  I cleaned the
drive, used
        >another tape, and the pump was successful the next time.
        >
        As I say on my COMMON pitch which covers recovery, if the PUMP
fails, try
        it over and over.  (Neil, you might not remember this from when
I did this
        pitch to your user group, berceuse this was the notorious two
hour pitch
        where Ken Sadler cut me off after one hour!  I will never let
him forget!)

        As well you shouldn't !   :-)
        Missed that meeting.  About the only thing outside work I get to
attend are my SAAB Owners Club Of Canada meetings.  These are the 3rd
Wednesday of the month, and the Toronto Users Group meets the
penultimate Wednesday of every second month.  Depending on the calendar
there may be one or two meetings that don't conflict.

        Although I had personally never considered the dirty tape drive
scenario, I
        usually attempt to clean the tape drive if it has to be used.
Never the
        less, failing DASD does not necessarily fail predictabily.
Clearly if the
        disk head has driven itself into the rust, you're dead.  But
there are some
        occasions where electronic components in the DASD unit fail, and
PUMP will
        attempt to go in at a very low level and bypass these
components.

        My rule with PUMP (or Unload/Restore as I believe they call it
these days) is "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again".  After
three or four failed attempts I usually resign myself to the fact that
I'm reloading the entire system.

        (I was under the impression that we added DASD to DASD pump many
releases
        ago, is this no longer the case?)

        I believe that is correct - IF you have an empty slot you can
install the new disk in to try the disk to disk pump.  I'm not sure but
they may be able to temporarily remove another live drive to make a spot
for the new disk to do the pump, then put them back where they were
after the pump.


                                << snip >>


        Interesting note:  When you slip install V3R2, system revokes
the *PUBLIC
        *USE authority to the PWRDWNSYS command, which is a part of the
system
        trying to tighten up security.  Not a bad strategy, however this
does break
        many systems.  Consequently the V3R2 Memo to Users advises this
change,
        giving you the option to change it back, which is what we did.
When you
        restore a V3R2 system from a DASD failure, the *PUBLIC authority
is once
        again revoked.  

        I have reported this as a bug, and I was responded to that it's
working as
        designed.   I responded with the commend "bad design"!  My
contention is
        that restore should restore exactly what you saved, and not
screw with your
        data or security.  The Memo to Users is not what you use to
recover a DASD
        failure!

        IBM is considering the problem.

        When I get the reply that they won't open an APAR on the code
because it's "working as designed" 
        I usually suggest that they open an APAR on the design, because
that is obviously broken !  :-)




        Al Barsa, Jr. - Account for Midrange-L
        Barsa Consulting, LLC.  
        400 > 390




... Neil Palmer                                     AS/400~~~~~      
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