Hi all--
Had a random desire to get my 3B2/600G running again over the weekend
(this machine was the first computer I ever used UNIX on, for better or
for worse...) after finding a working 300MB CDC Wren SCSI drive for it.
(The UNIX install media for this machine only supports a very limited
selection of drives -- it's possible to get the machine booting from an
unsupported drive, but it requires having a running UNIX on a supported
drive first, as far as I know.)
Unfortunately, disaster struck halfway through the installation -- the
tape drive's roller turned to mush. I checked it out before running the
install and it seemed fine -- it was a solid rubber wheel -- but I guess
something about actually running it caused it to break down. I managed
to fix the roller, but the tape got goo all over it and despite my best
efforts at cleaning it, that section of tape is unreadable so I can't
reinstall.
Fortunately, I have backups of the UNIX install tape files on my PC
(several versions thereof, in fact)-- so you'd think it'd be a simple
matter of attaching the tape drive to the PC and dd'ing over the
files... but I'm not having any luck on any of the machines I've tried.
I can only manage to copy over one file; attempting to write subsequent
files fails. I have a failing drive w/a partial UNIX install for the
3b2 that boots about half the time, so I tried to do the same from the
3B2 w/this drive installed and it has the same problem writing >1 file,
so it looks to be an issue with the drive and not the controller/OS.
The drive is a Wangtek 5125ES, a 125MB (or 120MB, if you believe AT&Ts
docs) drive. The error I get on from my Linux PC:
dd: writing /dev/nst0: Input/output error
st0: Current: sense key: Medium error
Additional sense: Filemark detected
Info fld=0x1
st0: Error on write filemark
(I've of course tried different tapes, with the same result.)
This is of course the only drive I have that's capable of writing tapes
in this format, and of course the 3B2 isn't happy with any other tape
drive I have... Anyone have any jumper settings for this drive? Anyone
experienced this problem?
Thanks,
Josh
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