Just a general comment as I have no specific knowledge of this drive. However, when using fixed length records, in any medium, it would be very unusual to have any sort of terminator marking the end of the records. Even with variable length records where the record length is held in the first bytes it is unusual to have a terminator, the records generally follow on directly from each other. Adding these extra two bytes would certainly screw-up the block length and is very likely causing your problem.
Ian ----- Original Message ----- From: HouseDad To: [email protected] Sent: Tuesday, July 19, 2005 2:19 PM Subject: [vbhelp] TAPE DRIVE ISSUES Hello all! First, thanks Matt for your reply to my last question, you've always been a big help, and I appreciate your time sacrificed to help me. This question may be off topic for this forum, so Shawn I apologize in advance, but the participants here represent a knowledge pool I would be hard-pressed to find elsewhere. I am working on a new job and basically have had to acquire an old tape drive to write the data to for transport to the customer. My experience with computing goes back to the early 80's, but this has been a new experience for me. When writing data to this drive, parameters selected include things like block length, record length, etc. I thought I did pretty well in educating myself and getting it all set up properly. The customer can't read the tape because of this error: "Internal block length of file does not agree with external block length." I am interpreting this to mean the block length of the data on the tape, which I set to represent 25 records of 275 bytes, does not correspond with what they are expecting to read. Which they say the block length for 25 records is preferred. I am reading the data from a file off a cd which has the 275 byte records. These records have a CR/LF at the end of each record. I am thinking perhaps the CR/LF is causing a problem, but I thought if I read a 275 byte record, the software (NovaXChange) would know the CR/LF is not part of the record itself and would strip that if necessary when transporting the data to the tape, which I configured as no label (filenames), 275 byte records at a fixed block length. I know this is a shot in the dark, but thought maybe some of you might have some experience with these older tape systems and help me understand what I might be doing wrong. I know that the customer specified a density of 85,000 BPI, and the drive we have is less than half that, and I think that's the problem, but really have no way of knowing. We can get another tape drive, but I am a victim of some pressure that's trickled down to me to get this problem resolved. As usual, I am expected to come up with the solution without the proper equipment and resources I need. LOL. Thanks in advance, Chris '// ======================================================= Rules : http://ReliableAnswers.com/List/Rules.asp Home : http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vbHelp/ ======================================================= Post : [email protected] Join : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Leave : [EMAIL PROTECTED] '// ======================================================= SPONSORED LINKS Programming languages C programming language Computer programming languages Java programming language C programming language History of computer programming language ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS a.. Visit your group "vbhelp" on the web. b.. To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] c.. Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] '// ======================================================= Rules : http://ReliableAnswers.com/List/Rules.asp Home : http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vbHelp/ ======================================================= Post : [email protected] Join : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Leave : [EMAIL PROTECTED] '// ======================================================= Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vbhelp/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
