Hey guys,

I am new to this forum so forgive me if I commit any sins while I'm here:

My problem is with a parallel port tape drive - more specifically an Iomega Ditto Easy 3200 Parallel Port Model.

I cannot get the drive to even be recognized by the kernel at bootup. (Well, technically it detects it as a Q117 type drive, but in reality it is not... it doens't conform directly to any Tape drive standards... Iomega has changed it just enough to warrant its own driver. (It uses the bkpck-fdc controller driver, though.)

Anyways, I have also changed my lilo.conf file to give the correct parameters with which to run the drive. I've read the Ftape HOW-TO, and Ive read about the physical drive. I've also read up on how to "append" to the kernel in the conf.modules (modular kernel), as well as how to use the lilo.conf file to pass the parameters to the kernel if you build it monolithically.

I am using Redhat 7.2, with the following hardware:

AMD K6-2+ 550MHz (128k L2 cache on die)
Aopen AX-59 Pro SS7, VIA MVP3 chipset, 1MB L3 cache...
256MB PC100 CAS 2 SDRAM (Crucial)
20.5GB Fujitsu HDD (Running in ATA/33 mode)
4.3GB WD Caviar HDD (Running in ATA/33 mode)
52X Sony CD-ROM (ATAPI) (Running ATA/33 mode)
ATI 3D Charger 1MB PCI Video Card (PCI slot 2)
3Com Etherlink III ISA NIC (ISA Slot 1)

I have compiled the kernel 2.4.18, and enabled all of the Parallel port options, in particular Parallel Port support, IEEE1284 transfer mode support, and "PC Hardware support" (generic parallel port support).

Under the ATA/IDE/MFM/RLL heading, I've checked off the IDE Tape drive support, although I know that FTape does not control IDE tape drives - only drives that use the fdc as the controller. (Which is a terrible hack, I've discovered...)

In the character devices area, I've included the FTape utility, along with zftape. It seems that the included version in the kernel is 3.04, although I am not 100% sure. Iomega tape drives require at least version 4.02 I've read. I would've figured that Linus would add the newest version of Ftape to the kernel if he knew it added much better tape drive support.

I am currently trying to get Ftape-4.04a to compile, using gcc-2.96 (Redhat 7.2 default gcc installation), although I've had no success so far... "Recursive error #1" followed by "Recursive error #2"

Using the kernel drivers does not allow me to access the drive at all. ftformat refuses to format any tapes whatsoever... "Device not ready; no device at specified location"

Has anyone gotten their Iomega Ditto 3200 Easy Parallel port drive to work under Redhat 7.2?

Best regards to everyone and thanks in advance for your help.

-Josh.

Here are the kernel options I've been using in my lilo.conf file:

append="ftape_fdc_driver=bpck-fdc,driver ftape=3,dma ftape=7,IRQ ftape=0x387,base ftape=1000,rate"

I am not at my PC and I didn't leave SSH running... so forgive me for not posting the dmesg results.... However, once again the kernel is saying it has found a QIC117 device, and it says on parport0 that it is found.

When compiling the source for a modular ftape driver, (Version 4.04-a), I have the kernel source configured and I've made the dependencies. The path to the kernel sources is the default (/usr/src/linux), but it keeps having recursive errors. I have not tried using a different version of gcc, but I don't think that would solve the problem - I suspect I am overlooking something.

Thanks again,

-Josh.

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I could really use some help...

Anyone?

bump again.