2 Jul
2005
2 Jul
'05
2:37 p.m.
Ok, it seems everytime I try to do something, there has to be about 96
unproductive hours filled with failed attempts to do even the simplest
things, like installing Linux for example.
I'll spare everyone the lame details, suffice it to say that, now that
everything is hooked up, I have been unable to successfully read a 9-track
tape.
I can certainly get the tape to do stuff like forward through files,
rewind, get the status, etc. using mt. That much works.
However, if I try to READ a file, and I've tried this with dd and Eric
Smith's tapedump utility and whatnot, it always returns with 0 files read.
It apparently sees the file marks as it will say its reading file 1, file
2, etc., but it never actually dumps anything.
I've tried the multiple tapes at multiple densities and they are tapes
I've read before on another system.
WTF???
--
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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2 Jul
2 Jul
8:31 p.m.
Sallem,
What kind of backups are they? Are they perhaps BSD Linux using
the level0 backup method? What version of Linux are you currently
running to do tape backup/restores? If it is a level0 (I'm rusting, so
someone correct me if I'm mistaken)
restore -i should put you into interactive mode
there you can do a directory of contents of the tape and if you are
looking to restore all the contents I think its restore -r * (make sure
you are in the destination directory before running that as all contents
will be copied into the directory you are in when you run that command)
Depending on your linux, you may have to patch it to include the restore
command as some instances of linux are no longer including it which I've
seen with Mandrake and Turbo Linux. Last time I checked version 8 and
think 9 of Redhat still had the command included.
Curt
Vintage Computer Festival wrote:
Ok, it seems everytime I try to do something, there has
to be about 96
unproductive hours filled with failed attempts to do even the simplest
things, like installing Linux for example.
I'll spare everyone the lame details, suffice it to say that, now that
everything is hooked up, I have been unable to successfully read a 9-track
tape.
I can certainly get the tape to do stuff like forward through files,
rewind, get the status, etc. using mt. That much works.
However, if I try to READ a file, and I've tried this with dd and Eric
Smith's tapedump utility and whatnot, it always returns with 0 files read.
It apparently sees the file marks as it will say its reading file 1, file
2, etc., but it never actually dumps anything.
I've tried the multiple tapes at multiple densities and they are tapes
I've read before on another system.
WTF???
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9:03 p.m.
Curt @ Atari Museum declared on Saturday 02 July 2005 10:31 pm:
Sallem,
What kind of backups are they? Are they perhaps BSD Linux
using the level0 backup method? What version of Linux are you
currently running to do tape backup/restores? If it is a level0 (I'm
rusting, so someone correct me if I'm mistaken)
Uhm, I really doubt that Sellam is trying to do backups from his Linux
system to 9-track tapes... I'm sure that he's trying to read tapes
written on something else (like maybe a PDP11 or something) on the Linux
box.
Sellam, are you sure that your tape drive works, and that the SCSI chain
is properly terminated? An unterminated SCSI chain may be good enough
to pass forward/rewind commands, but have problems with data transfers
long enough to pass data to/from the tape.
If the SCSI chain is intact and terminated properly (you could stick
another device, maybe a SCSI HDD, on the chain to test that), then i'd
suspect the drive as being bad.
Pat
--
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3 Jul
3 Jul
12:57 p.m.
On Sat, 2 Jul 2005, Patrick Finnegan wrote:
Curt @ Atari Museum declared on Saturday 02 July 2005
10:31 pm:
Correct.
Sallem,
What kind of backups are they? Are they perhaps BSD Linux
using the level0 backup method? What version of Linux are you
currently running to do tape backup/restores? If it is a level0 (I'm
rusting, so someone correct me if I'm mistaken)
Uhm, I really doubt that Sellam is trying to do backups from his Linux
system to 9-track tapes... I'm sure that he's trying to read tapes
written on something else (like maybe a PDP11 or something) on the Linux
box. Sellam, are you sure that your tape drive works, and
that the SCSI chain
is properly terminated? An unterminated SCSI chain may be good enough
to pass forward/rewind commands, but have problems with data transfers
long enough to pass data to/from the tape.
The tape drive was known to be working (I borrowed it from a Howard Harte
who used it previously to read some tapes for me).
However, the termination is something that I've been concerned with.
Howard used it with a short (~3ft) SCSI cable. I'm using it with a longer
(~6ft) cable. The tape drive has two 50-pin IDC connectors on the back.
There's a ribbon cable coming out of one of the connectors with two
amphenol connectors on the end. One amphenol connector is terminated, and
the other is connected to my SCSI cable, which is then connected to my
SCSI interface on the PC. The other 50-pin IDC connector is just open. I
mentioned to Howard that this didn't look right but he said it always
worked for him.
I have (or at least I think I have) a terminator that will plug into a
50-pin IDC type connector, but I can't find it. I'm hoping that fixing
this cabling mess will solve the problem.
If the SCSI chain is intact and terminated properly
(you could stick
another device, maybe a SCSI HDD, on the chain to test that), then i'd
suspect the drive as being bad.
Hmm, good idea. I hadn't thought to extend the chain to something that I
can reliably terminate.
I'll try again, though at this point I'd rather be shot in the head.
--
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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1:12 p.m.
Vintage Computer Festival wrote:
On Sat, 2 Jul 2005, Patrick Finnegan wrote:
Sellam, if you have a scratch tape, the best way to validate your
hardware is to write and then read a backup. tar, cpio or whatever.
Obviously that won't address questions like head alignment, but it
will tell you whether your SCSI chain is right and you're talking to the
tape drive correctly.
And in the unimaginable case that you don't have a scratch tape,
contact me off-list. :)
Doc
Curt @ Atari Museum declared on Saturday 02 July
2005 10:31 pm:
Uhm, I really doubt that Sellam is trying to do backups from his Linux
system to 9-track tapes... I'm sure that he's trying to read tapes
written on something else (like maybe a PDP11 or something) on the Linux
box.
Correct.
I'll try again, though at this point I'd rather be shot in the head.
2:08 p.m.
On Sun, 3 Jul 2005, Doc Shipley wrote:
Sellam, if you have a scratch tape, the best way to
validate your
hardware is to write and then read a backup. tar, cpio or whatever.
Indeed. I thought of doing this last night so I'll attempt this when I
next try to get this stuff working.
:)
--
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org
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3:32 p.m.
At 02:57 PM 7/3/2005, Vintage Computer Festival wrote:
However, the termination is something that I've
been concerned with.
Howard used it with a short (~3ft) SCSI cable. I'm using it with a longer
(~6ft) cable. The tape drive has two 50-pin IDC connectors on the back.
There's a ribbon cable coming out of one of the connectors with two
amphenol connectors on the end. One amphenol connector is terminated, and
the other is connected to my SCSI cable, which is then connected to my
SCSI interface on the PC. The other 50-pin IDC connector is just open. I
mentioned to Howard that this didn't look right but he said it always
worked for him.
I have (or at least I think I have) a terminator that will plug into a
50-pin IDC type connector, but I can't find it. I'm hoping that fixing
this cabling mess will solve the problem.
Ah, termination. I never believed it was right until I took apart
every device and confirmed the wiring. I've seen commercial external
SCSI boxes wired the wrong way inside (making illegal 'T's instead
of daisy-chain), making proper termination impossible. Good cables
can make a difference. Your 6-foot versus Howard's 3-foot could
make a difference. Try swapping cables.
I'll try again, though at this point I'd rather
be shot in the head.
Obviously it's not going to work without the SCSI blood sacrifice.
- John
3:55 p.m.
On Sun, 2005-07-03 at 12:57 -0700, Vintage Computer Festival wrote:
However, the termination is something that I've
been concerned with.
Howard used it with a short (~3ft) SCSI cable. I'm using it with a longer
(~6ft) cable. The tape drive has two 50-pin IDC connectors on the back.
There's a ribbon cable coming out of one of the connectors with two
amphenol connectors on the end. One amphenol connector is terminated, and
the other is connected to my SCSI cable, which is then connected to my
SCSI interface on the PC.
Umm, that's plain wrong.
SCSI's just a single bus which needs to be terminated at each end,
nowhere inbetween. The controller can be anywhere physically on the bus
so long as termination rules are observed. It really is that simple.
Sounds like what you have is something where one end of the bus is
terminated *before* the last device (the tape drive). That *might* just
work (often with the odd data error during use) on a short cable or at a
low speed, but it's still wrong.
Not sure what controller you're using, but you might need to drop the
transfer rate in the BIOS too for that particular device if it's a bit
old and clunky.
I've never worked out why people think SCSI's so complex - it's always
seemed easy to me; the only hassle is tracing oddball data faults when
running close to the limit of performance and with a fully loaded bus.
I have (or at least I think I have) a terminator that
will plug into a
50-pin IDC type connector, but I can't find it. I'm hoping that fixing
this cabling mess will solve the problem.
Does the drive not have termination built-in that's activated by a
jumper? That's reasonably common, even on really old drives. Worst case,
grab any old SCSI disk that can also do termination and put *that* at
the end of the bus 'past' the tape drive; power it from an old PC PSU or
something. (as someone else has suggested)
I'll try again, though at this point I'd
rather be shot in the head.
it's easy :) Seriously, I've always had more trouble with IDE setups
than I have with SCSI (usually because the drives / cables / controllers
tend to be cheap crap)
have fun!
Jules
10:52 p.m.
However, the termination is something that I've
been concerned with.
Howard used it with a short (~3ft) SCSI cable. I'm using it with a
longer (~6ft) cable. The tape drive has two 50-pin IDC connectors on
the back. There's a ribbon cable coming out of one of the connectors
with two amphenol connectors on the end. One amphenol connector is
terminated, and the other is connected to my SCSI cable, which is
then connected to my SCSI interface on the PC. The other 50-pin IDC
connector is just open. I mentioned to Howard that this didn't look
right but he said it always worked for him.
...on what hardware?
It's not right. You might be able to get away with the exceptions for
stubs to devices if the wires from the terminator to the device and the
open connector are short enough, but that seems unlikely to me,
especially since I think the maximum stub length for that exception is
something like three inches.
I would, though, suggest using an old slow host interface to drive it.
A modern peecee SCSI card will probably try to run it at fairly high
speeds, at which rates the transmission-line effects of the wiring
botch can cause trouble; at slow data rates such as are typical of
pre-sync SCSI, it may well work fine.
And, yes, as whoever it was (Curt, I think?) said, terminate it, even
if it means hooking up another device.
Oh, and-- use an active terminator, if you can.
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4 Jul
4 Jul
4:48 p.m.
It's not right. You might be able to get away
with the exceptions for
stubs to devices if the wires from the terminator to the device and the
open connector are short enough, but that seems unlikely to me,
especially since I think the maximum stub length for that exception is
something like three inches.
As a general point you should never try to 'get away with things' like
this. This applies IMHO to all areas of hardware -- if you do things like
this they will come back to 'bite' you when you least want problems. I
would put everything right (e.g. not have stubs on a SCSI bus) and then
try to sort out remaining problems, knowing that they're genuine
problems, not caused by misuse of hardware.
-tony
3 Jul
3 Jul
7:08 a.m.
Could this be a driver issue ? I would verify that the
tape drive you're using is set up in the SCSI tape
subsystem. I went through a similar exercise for
Solaris with an Overland tape drive and I had to edit
and recompile st.c in order to correctly deal with the
drive.
What type of tape drive is it - and which
version/flavor of Linux ?
Dave
--- Vintage Computer Festival <vcf at siconic.com> wrote:
However, if I try to READ a file, and I've tried
this with dd and Eric
Smith's tapedump utility and whatnot, it always
returns with 0 files read.
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1:02 p.m.
On Sun, 3 Jul 2005, David Comley wrote:
Could this be a driver issue ? I would verify that
the
tape drive you're using is set up in the SCSI tape
subsystem. I went through a similar exercise for
Solaris with an Overland tape drive and I had to edit
and recompile st.c in order to correctly deal with the
drive.
What type of tape drive is it - and which
version/flavor of Linux ?
It's a Kennedy 9610: pretty common. I'm running under Knoppix. Perhaps
not the best choice for this sort of thing, but then all the right device
handles are there, as well as all the same tools you'd use on any flavor
of Linux.
--
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org
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7112
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7114
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11 comments
9 participants
participants (9)
-
ard＠p850ug1.demon.co.uk -
curt＠atarimuseum.com -
david_comley＠yahoo.com -
doc＠mdrconsult.com -
jfoust＠threedee.com -
julesrichardsonuk＠yahoo.co.uk -
mouse＠Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA -
pat＠computer-refuge.org -
vcf＠siconic.com