I've having considerable trouble with writing to a simple tape drive and I'm hoping that someone here has some experience with it:
I'm using a Quantum Superloader, so I've installed mtx to manipulate the tapes. This part works without issue. Load the tape from slot #3: # mtx -f /dev/sg2 load 3 Now that it's in the drive, I try to tar something onto it: # cd / # tar cf /dev/st0 bin/ bin/ bin/bash <a VERY long wait> tar: /dev/st0: Cannot write: Input/output error tar: Error is not recoverable: exiting now After getting that error, I check /var/log/messages: Dec 21 22:19:44 archiver kernel: st0: Block limits 2 - 16777214 bytes. Dec 21 22:30:37 archiver kernel: st0: Error 400f0 (sugg. bt 0x0, driver bt 0x0, host bt 0x4). Dec 21 22:30:48 archiver kernel: st0: Error with sense data: Current st0: sense key Unit Attention Dec 21 22:30:48 archiver kernel: Additional sense: Not ready to ready change, medium may have changed What the heck does this mean? I've checked the cables, everything seems secure. Connectivity doesn't seem to be the problem because I can tell the tape drive to do whatever I like without issue. The drive was just purchased and the tapes are new so we don't have a cleaning tape (though I don't think it'd be needed yet) so what's left? Here's the output of /proc/scsi/scsi: Attached devices: Host: scsi1 Channel: 00 Id: 00 Lun: 00 Vendor: SEAGATE Model: ST39204LW Rev: 0006 Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 03 Host: scsi2 Channel: 05 Id: 05 Lun: 00 Vendor: BNCHMARK Model: DLT1 Rev: 5C3F Type: Sequential-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 02 Host: scsi2 Channel: 05 Id: 05 Lun: 01 Vendor: QUANTUM Model: UHDL Rev: 0028 Type: Medium Changer ANSI SCSI revision: 02 -- real men don't make backups. they upload it via ftp and let the world mirror it. - Linus Torvalds -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list