6 Apr
1999
6 Apr
'99
6:07 p.m.
On Sun, 4 Apr 1999, Sergey Svishchev wrote:
G'day,
Yesterday four geeks (including myself) had tried to convince a HP 88780
9-track SCSI drive (cleverly disguised as Tandem 5160) to accept 6250 bpi
tapes. It works OK at 1600 bpi, but refuses to admit it knows about 6250:
"mt setdensity 3" on a Linux box results in "Incompatible media
installed"
error (when the tape written at 6250 bpi is loaded.)
The problem is: no docs. By playing with front panel buttons, we
discovered lots of interesting knobs to turn (CONF 40..199), but weren't
inclined to try them all. What CONF will allow 6250 bpi density to be
used? Or is it permanently disabled by Tandem-customized firmware?
You didn't mention which kernel you're running or the host adapter. I think
there have been quite a few improvements to the st and scsi drivers in the
2.2.x kernels. Upgrading to 2.2.1 solved a lot of tape problems for me--none of
them fatal, but all of them frustrating, like failure to properly detect EOD,
EOT, etc. It might be a good idea to have a look at
/usr/src/linux/drivers/scsi/ for any readmes on your host adapter.
--
David Wollmann
DST / DST Data Conversion
http://www.ibmhelp.com/