Re: DAT drives

From: Dan Strick (strick_at_covad.net)
Date: 12/24/03

  • Next message: Chris Howells: "Re: DAT drives" 
    Date: Wed, 24 Dec 2003 03:26:57 -0800 (PST)
To: web@typo.org

    On Tue, 23 Dec 2003, Wayne E. Bouchard <web@typo.org> wrote:
    >>
    > I just picked up a (used) surestore C1533A (thats an HP device) and am
    > having some problems getting it work quite right. I've got the dip switches
    > set correctly (I was able to find at least 3 corroborating pages for that)
    > but can't manage to get it to write correctly. It will only write about
    > 50 megs using 0a as dump flags. Trying to specify -B and estimating
    > compression got me to about 200 but it's a 4 gig drive. All it wants to
    > do is write a few blocks, sit and sputter for a second or two, write a few
    > more, (repeat for about 15 minutes) and then tell me it's at EOM well before
    > it should be.
    >
    > There are notes in the hardware compatability section that says this
    > drive has been made to work onder FreeBSD so I know at least that it's
    > not simply an unsupported device.
    >
    > Any suggestions from the folks in the audience?
    >>

    I have one of those drives (an HP C1533A) and it seems to work ok for me.
    I can't confidently identify your problem, but I can make a wild guess.
    Your symptoms could be caused by media problems. This is an especially
    common problem with used (i.e. worn down) drives. You might try cleaning
    your tape drive and using a new tape. (A slightly used tape might actually
    be better since using a tape may clean it a little bit.)

    One of the problems old drives is that the heads wear down and error rates
    go up. The nature of the recording technology requires such aggressive
    media error recovery that marginal operation may not be quite obvious.
    Sometimes it seems that the technology was designed to be frustrating.

    Dan Strick
    strick@covad.net
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  • Next message: Chris Howells: "Re: DAT drives"

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