SLES9 IDE tape configuration

smaphosa · 05-02-2006, 07:58 AM

I have a Dell Poweredge sc420 server with an IDE tape drive and in dmesg as hdb: Seagate STT3401A, ATAPI TAPE drive, now my problems is do I make this work? I am using Suse linux enterprise server 9.

marozsas · 05-02-2006, 08:49 AM

Try "mt -f /dev/hdb status". Repeat this command with and without a tape loaded into the drive. Other commands you may try are "mt -f /dev/hdb rewind" and ""mt -f /dev/hdb eject".

If it works, then you may try to write/read something to a tape with

Code:

# cd /
# tar -cf /dev/hdb etc
# mt -f /dev/hdb rewind
# tar -tvf /dev/hdb
# mt -f /dev/hdb rewind
# cd /tmp
# mkdir tape-test
# cd tape-test
# tar -xvf /dev/hdb
# ls

smaphosa · 05-04-2006, 02:13 AM

I have tried mt -f /dev/hdb status and it says '/dev/hdb is not a character special file', have also tried status on /dev/ht0 and it says 'No medium found' without the tape and 'input/output error' with tape.

smaphosa · 05-04-2006, 02:27 AM

There are also some messages on the messages side about the ide tape and they are;
ide-tape: unsupported module, tainting kernel
ide-tape: ht0:I/O error, pc=0, key=2, asc=3a,ascq=0
ide-tape: ht0:drive not ready

What do these messages mean?

marozsas · 05-04-2006, 06:12 AM

I suppose your kernel has not support for this IDE tape drive. And the correct device for this tape should be /dev/ht0, not /dev/hdb, regardless messages in dmesg.

You should look for a linux driver for this tape. Google is your best friend in this situation.