[comp.sys.ibm.pc.rt] Can 6157-002 tape drive be forced to write in -001 form?

peter@hydrovax.nmt.edu (Peter A. Blemel) (11/02/89)

   We have a 6157-002 tape drive on a 6150/135 running AIX 2.2.1. I have
been trying to figure out how to make this thing write tapes that a normal
tape drive can read. By normal I mean the -001, Suns, Decstations, etc.

   When we first got the machine, the tape didn't work at all. IBM 
inadvertantly sent a 001 to replace the bad -002. We were quite happy in
our ignorance because we could interchange tapes with the Sun. Recently
that drive died, and we were given a 002 because IBM wanted to rectify
its mistake.

   Now nothing (except the RT itself) can read tapes the RT writes. This
is a considerable problem because we do all our development on this machine
and port away from it. It can read tapes written by these other machines, but
not write tapes that they can read. Is there anything, short of buying a
001, that I can do?

   This drive is also rediculously slow. I have the buffer size maxed out
(tar at 800), and it still takes forever to write even 10k. Is there
any way to switch this data compression or whatever it is off, or am I
missing some parameter to make it go faster?

   Any pointers would be greatly appriciated.

Thanks
Peter
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peter@hydrovax.nmt.edu
peter@amber.nmt.edu
(505) 835 4761
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