[Preston] lancaster meeting

[Dux]

I am having problems with a tape drive on a box with RH7.1  on.

I believe the drive is IDE as i used an ide cable and the bios picked it up
on 2nd IDE device. (dont know much about hardware differences between scsi
and ide connectors).

Initially I thought I was getting somewhere when I ran command: mt -f
/dev/nht0 reten and the tape rewound.

I can run mt -f /dev/nht0 status and get this output:

SCSI 2 tape drive:
File number=0, block number=0, partition=0.
Tape block size 1024 bytes. Density code 0x0 (default).
Soft error count since last status=0
General status bits on (0):

I tried command mt -f /dev/nht0 fsf and get reply:
device is offline or not powered on or no tape (when it looks fine,
tapes in etc)

A tar command tar cfv /dev/nht0 archive-name returns:

Removing leading `/' from member names
/list of files
..
..
tar: /dev/nht0: Wrote only 0 of 10240 bytes
tar: Error is not recoverable: exiting now


I have a part of my dmesg file if thats of use, I am really a novice
and guessing what to do next.

dmesg:

end_request: I/O error, dev 16:41 (hdd), sector 12
ide-tape: hdd: Unsupported command in request queue (0)
end_request: I/O error, dev 16:41 (hdd), sector 14
ide-tape: hdd: Unsupported command in request queue (0)
end_request: I/O error, dev 16:41 (hdd), sector 16
ide-tape: hdd: Unsupported command in request queue (0)
end_request: I/O error, dev 16:41 (hdd), sector 18
ide-tape: hdd: Unsupported command in request queue (0)
end_request: I/O error, dev 16:40 (hdd), sector 2
ide-tape: Reached idetape_chrdev_open
ide-tape: Reached idetape_read_position
...
...
ide-tape: ht0: I/O error, pc = 10, key =  3, asc = 30, ascq =  0
ide-tape: Reached idetape_read_position_callback
ide-tape: ht0: I/O error, pc =  8, key =  5, asc = 2c, ascq =  0
ftape v3.04d 25/11/97
(c) 1993-1996 Bas Laarhoven (bas@vimec.nl)
(c) 1995-1996 Kai Harrekilde-Petersen (khp@dolphinics.no)
(c) 1996-1997 Claus-Justus Heine (claus@momo.math.rwth-aachen.de)
QIC-117 driver for QIC-40/80/3010/3020 floppy tape drives
Compiled for Linux version 2.4.7-10 with versioned symbols
[000] ftape-init.c (ftape_init) - installing QIC-117 floppy tape
hardware drive ... .
[001] ftape-init.c (ftape_init) - ftape_init @ 0xc78a2060.
[002]   ftape-buffer.c (add_one_buffer) - buffer nr #1 @ c12f9a40, dma
area @ c02f8000.
[003]   ftape-buffer.c (add_one_buffer) - buffer nr #2 @ c12f9ac0, dma
area @ c0090000.
[004]   ftape-buffer.c (add_one_buffer) - buffer nr #3 @ c12f9b40, dma
area @ c0008000.
[005]   ftape-calibr.c (time_inb) - inb() duration: 1235 nsec.
[006]  ftape-calibr.c (ftape_calibrate) - TC for `ftape_udelay()' =
151 nsec (at 40959 counts).
[007]  ftape-calibr.c (ftape_calibrate) - TC for `fdc_wait()' = 2461
nsec (at 2559 counts).
ide-tape: Reached idetape_chrdev_open
ide-tape: Reached idetape_read_position
ide-tape: ht0: I/O error, pc = 10, key =  3, asc = 30, ascq =  0
ide-tape: Reached idetape_read_position_callback
...
...
Also here is part of /var/log/messages:
Sep 11 13:24:45 globe kernel: ide-tape: Reached idetape_chrdev_open
Sep 11 13:24:45 globe kernel: ide-tape: Reached idetape_read_position
Sep 11 13:24:45 globe kernel: ide-tape: ht0: I/O error, pc = 10, key =  2,
asc = 3a, ascq =  0
Sep 11 13:24:45 globe kernel: ide-tape: Reached
idetape_read_position_callback
Sep 11 13:24:45 globe kernel: ide-tape: Block location is unknown to the
tape
Sep 11 13:24:45 globe kernel: ide-tape: Reached
idetape_read_position_callback
Sep 11 13:24:45 globe kernel: ide-tape: Block location is unknown to the
tape
Sep 11 13:24:45 globe kernel: ide-tape: ht0: I/O error, pc =  0, key =  2,
asc = 3a, ascq =  0
Sep 11 13:24:45 globe kernel: ide-tape: ht0: drive not ready
.....
.....


Thanks.