SCSII DAT tape recognized but not reading/writing

[lansman]

I have client with a sco 5.0x box using an HP35470A 2-4 GB DAT tape drive which was recently installed. The "tape" commands show that the machine recognizes the tape drive: tape statis is ready, beginning of tape, no soft or hard overruns - clean. However we get the following messages with the following commands:
tar cv8 [files] tar: tape write error
tar tv8 tar: tape read error
tar: Permission denied
cpio -vit</dev/xct0 cpio: I/O error in read()

The tape is the right size, it is not write-protected, the /etc/default/tape file contains /dec/xct0 as the default drive and it is set on adapter 0 , ID 3.

What in the %R$#$@# is causing the tape drive to not work?

 

[PHV]

1) Had the tape been defined as a scsi DAT tape with compression/decompression enable ?
2) What are the permissions in the /dev directory ?
ls -l /dev/*Stp0
3) /dev/xct0 is reserved for the tape command, use /dev/rct0 instead (provided rct0 is linked to rStp0)

Hope This Helps, PH.
Want to get great answers to your Tek-Tips questions? Have a look at FAQ219-2884 or FAQ222-2244

 

[lansman]

Are you suggesting going into the /etc/default/tar file and making sure that tv8 is referring to /dev/rct0? Also - would entail use of cpio -vit</dev/rct0 instead of xct0?