Slack 9.1 (2.4.26) and HP Ultrium 215i write problem
 

Dear all,

I've run into a problem trying to set up an HP Ultrium 215i tape drive on my Slackware box to finally start doing some real backups instead of just relying on mirroring and dumps to other drives.

I'm running Slackware 9.1 kernel 2.4.26 (updates so far as the lastest security patches) and I'm using LSI LOGICs ULTRA 21040B SCSI 160 HBA with the HP drive as the only SCSI drive.

I don't get the sym53c8xx_2 driver to load during boot but I've no problem adding it using insmod in rc.local and the tapedrive responds to mt commands so I have assumed that that should be ok.

HPs Library&Tape Tools run trough all tests without problems (Verification/Media/the whole lot) but when I try to tar a file to the drive it won't let me write to the drive (se below). Dump does the same thing. I have included the result of a tar attemt below. A status request from the drive before the attemt and one just after is also there (only diff is that tape now has stepped forward 2 blocks). I then run a rewind and the tape responds properly.

This is the first time I've messed around with a tape drive so I might have just bypassed something very basic. I followed the HP Linux install guide which is kind of brief, and alas does not provide a lot of comfort when things don't run as supposed.

Any help would be most appreciated as I'm quite at my wits end.

regards,
Mattias Löfgren

Please find some additional info below:
Slackware 9.1 with sym53c8xx_2 driver for
LSI LOGIC ULTRA 21040B SCSI 160

s# cat /etc/rc.d/rc.local
...
insmod sym53c8xx_2
mt -f /dev/nst0 stsetoptions scsi2logical
....

# cat /proc/scsi/scsi
Attached devices:
Host: scsi2 Channel: 00 Id: 03 Lun: 00
Vendor: HP Model: Ultrium 1-SCSI Rev: N26D
Type: Sequential-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 03


# lsmod
Module Size Used by Not tainted
st 27788 0
sym53c8xx_2 67632 0


# mt -f /dev/nst0 status
SCSI 2 tape drive:
File number=0, block number=0, partition=0.
Tape block size 65536 bytes. Density code 0x40 (DLT1 40 GB, or Ultrium).
Soft error count since last status=0
General status bits on (41010000):
BOT ONLINE IM_REP_EN

# tar -cvf /dev/nst0 trialzip
trialzip
tar: /dev/nst0: Wrote only 0 of 10240 bytes
tar: Error is not recoverable: exiting now

# mt -f /dev/nst0 status
SCSI 2 tape drive:
File number=0, block number=2, partition=0.
Tape block size 65536 bytes. Density code 0x40 (DLT1 40 GB, or Ultrium).
Soft error count since last status=0
General status bits on (1010000):
ONLINE IM_REP_EN

# mt -f /dev/nst0 rewind
# mt -f /dev/nst0 status
SCSI 2 tape drive:
File number=0, block number=0, partition=0.
Tape block size 65536 bytes. Density code 0x40 (DLT1 40 GB, or Ultrium).
Soft error count since last status=0
General status bits on (41010000):
BOT ONLINE IM_REP_EN