Unable to read/write to a tape with tar in Red Hat AS4

[Cameron Simpson]

On 25May2006 15:24, Posey, Jake E <Jake.E.Posey at boeing.com> wrote:
| I'm getting the following error when trying to read a tape.  I check the
| status of the drive.
| 
| [root at darc200 ~]# mt -f /dev/nst0 status
| SCSI 2 tape drive:
| File number=0, block number=-1, partition=0.
| Tape block size 32768 bytes. Density code 0x26 (DDS-4 or QIC-4GB).
| Soft error count since last status=0
| General status bits on (1010000):
|  ONLINE IM_REP_EN
| 
| Then I attempt to read the tape and get the following errors:
| [root at darc200 ~]# tar -b32768 -tvf /dev/nst0

Don't you mean -b 64? -b takes units of 512 bytes you know...

| tar: This does not look like a tar archive
[...]
| When I don't specify the block size it just hangs.
| [root at darc200 ~]# tar tvf /dev/nst0

Is the tape doing anything?

Does this:

	strace -e trace=file tar tvf /dev/nst0

show anything happening?
This will be doing 512 byte sized block reads.

| When attempting to write to the tape using tar -cvf temp.tar /dev/nst0
| it fails also.

Certainly. You have that backwards. You want:

	tar cvf /dev/nst0 ...

to write to the tape. And why write a tar file containing a tar file?

| The tape is a HP StorageWorks Dat 40  scsi tape and usb tape devices.
| The OS is Red Hat AS 4.0 with kernel 2.6.9-5.EL i686 GNU/Linux.  I have
| the same problem with both tape devices.  
| 
| I can take the tape and put it in a dat drive on a hp and read it just
| fine.

Using what command? Or is the HP not running UNIX?
-- 
Cameron Simpson <cs at zip.com.au> DoD#743
http://www.cskk.ezoshosting.com/cs/

Morality is the herd-instinct in the individual.        - Nietzsche