frankb@usource.UUCP (Frank Bicknell) (06/03/89)
I've noticed in my experience with tape drives under SCO Xenix 2.3.1 that while the Archive drive/drivers seem to behave themselves, the Wangtek drive/drivers misbehave on occasion. Specifically, when you use /dev/rct0 with the Archive drive/drivers, the tape rewinds after the operation. This can be verified with a 'tape status' command returning beginning-of-tape. However, try the same operation on the Wangtek drive/drivers and there is a blank status until you issue a 'tape rewind' command. What's more, tape operations mysteriously fail if you forget to do this or haven't yet realized that it was happening; evidently because the tape picks up where it left off in the middle of the image. (* more below for those interested) Has anyone else noticed this strange behavior? And what has become of the old 'at-filemark' status? I thought 2.2 returned such a status after a read from /dev/nrct0 or after a 'tape rfm' command. The 2.3 drivers seem to not know about this (although the operation seems to work alright). * More details in case anyone's interested in the "left in the middle of the image" problem: For example, when one uses the 't' or 'T' option of restor, it is only necessary to read the first part of the dump: the part with the dump date and inode records in it. The Wangtek drive/drivers just stop after this read, leaving the tape between these records and the data records. Trying any other restor operation after doing this gives a 'Volume is not a backup volume.' (or some such) On the other hand, the Archive drive/drivers rewinds automatically after the read. No manual rewind necessary. BTW.. notice that I've used drive/drivers throughout. Rumor has it that there's nothing wrong with the drive itself, but rather the drivers are a little confused at times. True? -- Frank Bicknell UniSource; 1405 Main St, Ste 709; Sarasota, FL 34236 killer!usource!frankb || frankb@usource.UUCP