Tape Drives Do Not Vary On at IPL

With the advent of faster processors in the IBM System i products, IPL times are becoming shorter and shorter. As a result, some tape drive resources have not reported into the Hardware Service Manager (HSM) in Service Tools by the time the system is ready to VARY ON the tape or tape library device description. This can occur even though the device description has ONLINE AT IPL (ONLINE) set to *YES. This may result in one or more the following messages being issued during the IPL.

CPD26D6 - Device resource name &1 not found.

CPD27EF - Vary Configuration error occurred during IPL.

MCH3402 - Tried to refer to all or part of an object that no longer exists

  F/QTAIXMGR x'0AF9'  T/ F/QTAIXMGR x'0AF9'

Tape drive resources under the tape library description may have a status of DEALLOCATED.

However, when the user attempts to vary the tape or tape library on after the IPL completes, the device will vary on without errors.

Because of this, it is recommended that the tape or tape library ONLINE parameter value be changed to *NO as follows:

CHGDEVTAP DEVD(TAP01) ONLINE(*NO)

or

CHGDEVMLB DEVD(TAPMLB01) ONLINE(*NO)

The user must change the start-up program. To determine what start-up program is being used, you should issue the following command:

WRKSYSVAL QSTRUPPGM

Press the Enter key, and select Option 5.

Once you have this, you should use the information contained in document "Changing the IPL Start-Up Program" to edit the IPL start-up program and add the following command(s) to the program. It is recommended that these commands are added toward the end of the program.

For stand-alone tape drives:

VRYCFG CFGOBJ(TAP01) CFGTYPE(*DEV) STATUS(*ON)

For Tape Media Libraries:

VRYCFG CFGOBJ(TAPMLB01) CFGTYPE(*DEV) STATUS(*ON)

and

VRYCFG CFGOBJ(TAPMLB01) CFGTYPE(*MLBRSC) STATUS(*ALLOCATE) RSRCNAME(TAP01)

The STATUS parameter value can be set to *ALLOCATE or *UNPROTECTED.

Note: Before issuing VRYCFG command, it is recommended to sometimes add a DLYJOB DLY(120) or DLYJOB DLY(180) in the startup program to wait for 2 or 3 minutes which will give the system ample time for the tape drive resources to get reported into the hardware service manager.