*BSD News Article 98331


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From: tedm@portsoft.com
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Re: Problems with streamer 35480A under 2.2.1 and 2.1.5
Date: 24 Jun 1997 08:24:51 GMT
Organization: Easystreet Online Services
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Message-ID: <5oo08j$5ub$2@easystreet03>
References: <33AE50B5.22B2@i5.informatik.rwth-aachen.de>
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In <33AE50B5.22B2@i5.informatik.rwth-aachen.de>, Norbert Grundmann <grundman@i5.informatik.rwth-aachen.de> writes:
>Hi,
>
>i habe an HP 35480A streamer.  It does not seem to work
>correct.  Doing a 'mt -f /dev/nrst0 erase' failed after
>several minutes.  Reading a tape that was writting by a
>HP 1533 streamer is not possible (The streamer was written
>by solaris 2.5).  My (new) FreeBSD 2.2.1 system was (sometimes)
>hanging and only a reset was possible.  The HP35480A
>streamer has the version 7.9 (!?).  Any answers are welcome.
>

HP has buried on their technical support web site a list of all of their tape drives
and what the little switches on the bottom are supposed to be set to for various
Unixii.  The tape drive is probably jumpered in some weird mode - if I remember
right Solaris likes everything on it's SCSI chain jumpered at fixed 512-byte blocks,
which is a real pain in the ass when attempting to put a CD on a Sparc.  (since
few CD drives have the required jumper on the back)

Also, a lot of those 4mm DAT drives will upchuck when fed SCSI in synchronous
mode, even after happily negotiating sync mode with the SCSI card.  If you have a
reasonably advanced SCSI card, set the SCSI ID on the tapedrive to max 5MBt
and no sync negotiation.  The only thing you really need to have running on
a SCSI tape drive is disconnection.