I am a newbie to linux and Debian. I am trying to setup a tape backup in our new Dell Poweredge server. The tape is IDE and I read that the best way to use it would be to do a IDE-SCSI emulation using modprobe ide-scsi and use tar to write and extract from it.

However, when I try to mt -f /dev/st0 status, it gives me the following error.

st0: Error with sense data: Current st09:00: sns = 70 5
ASC=20 ASCQ= 0

I have read some posts claiming various levels of seriousness to this error (including benign message to serious error). However, the drive seems to work though. It seems to write and retrieve so far. The drive and the computer are brand new. So, I assume there should be no head cleaning issues involved. Let me know what you guys think.

Thank you in advance.

Krish