How to find out if Tape drive is compatible or not?

nishidwivedi · 06-14-2006, 07:04 AM

Hi,
Tape drive taht I have is IBM ULTRIUM-TD1 36U3.
I have st0,nst0 in /dev list.
I tried to wtite to tape using
tar -cvf /dev/nst0 file1
I got this error:
tar: /dev/nst0: Cannot open: Input/output error
tar: Error is not recoverable: exiting now

same error is seen with st0. Have provided link to Tape
[root@xyz \dev]# ls -lrt tape
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 4 Jul 18 10:29 tape -> nst0

Not able to write through /dev/tape too.

Can some one help me out in this problem and tell me how to write to Tape on linux.

Thanks

imagineers7 · 06-14-2006, 07:35 AM

Hello nishi dwivedi,

To check if the drive is compatible or not , you will
have to read HCL for your distribution.

Have a look at:- for a quick howto on tape backups
http://www.uwsg.iu.edu/usail/backups/backup/
Hope, this will help you