davis@ADENOSINE.PHARM.UTAH.EDU ("Darrell R. Davis") (03/20/90)
My thanks to several people who made suggestions for reading Sparc tapes, none of them worked, but I did a work-around and will post what I think the problem was/is. First the solution was to make a new Sparc tape using tar cvf /dev/rst8. The default tape device is /dev/rst0 which must be QIC-150 format, supposedly the same as the PI tape drive, but not compatible???? After making the /dev/rst8 tape which is supposedly QIC-24 I used dd if=/dev/tape conv=swab | tar xvf- to read the Sparc tape on my 4D/20, no problem. It would still be interesting to find out how to make the QIC-150's talk to each other. -----Darrell R. Davis davis@adenosine.pharm.utah.edu "Faster, faster, until the Assistant Professor thrill of speed overcomes Medicinal Chemistry the fear of death." University of Utah --H.S. Thompson -----
mitch@rock.sgi.com (Tom Mitchell) (03/27/90)
In article <9003191854.AA20775@adenosine.pharm.utah.edu> davis@ADENOSINE.PHARM.UTAH.EDU ("Darrell R. Davis") writes:
*
* My thanks to several people who made suggestions for reading Sparc
* tapes, none of them worked, but I did a work-around and will post what
* I think the problem was/is.
*
* First the solution was to make a new Sparc tape using tar cvf
* /dev/rst8. The default tape device is /dev/rst0 which must be QIC-150
* format, supposedly the same as the PI tape drive, but not
* compatible???? After making the /dev/rst8 tape which is supposedly
* QIC-24 I used
*
* dd if=/dev/tape conv=swab | tar xvf-
*
* to read the Sparc tape on my 4D/20, no problem. It would still be
* interesting to find out how to make the QIC-150's talk to each other.
*
* -----
Darrell got my attention. Is it possible that the tape drive is
a QIC-11/24 drive and not a QIC-150. I wonder if Darrell was writing
a QIC-11 tape. From a SUN st(4S) man page:
====== snip----------
FILES
For QIC-150 tape devices (Archive Viper):
/dev/rst[0-3] QIC-150 Format
/dev/rst[8-11] QIC-150 Format
/dev/rst[16-20] QIC-150 Format
/dev/rst[24-28] QIC-150 Format
/dev/nrst[0-3] non-rewinding QIC-150 Format
/dev/nrst[8-11] non-rewinding QIC-150 Format
/dev/nrst[16-19] non-rewinding QIC-150 Format
/dev/nrst[24-27] non-rewinding QIC-150 Format
For QIC-24 tape devices (Emulex MT-02 and Sysgen SC4000):
/dev/rst[0-3] QIC-11 Format
/dev/rst[8-11] QIC-24 Format
/dev/rst[16-20] QIC-24 Format
/dev/rst[24-28] QIC-24 Format
/dev/nrst[0-3] non-rewinding QIC-11 Format
/dev/nrst[8-11] non-rewinding QIC-24 Format
/dev/nrst[16-19] non-rewinding QIC-24 Format
/dev/nrst[24-27] non-rewinding QIC-24 Format
Note: The QIC-24 format is preferred over QIC-11 for Sun-3,
Sun-3x, Sun-4, and Sun386i systems.
====== end snip -------
Note how the name space overlaps.
When READING tapes on an SGI machine (with a SCSI tape
drive) there are only two devices one needs to try. They
are: /dev/tape and /dev/tapens. Recently the 'ns' flavor of
device has been added to not swap bytes. The selection a 'ns'
device can avoid the dd conv=swab stuff. These two devices
have the complementary no rewind on-open (nr) flavors as well.
The SCSI drives we currently use will switch its own
internal gears between QIC-24 and QIC-150 transparently on
reads, reads, reads, reads. A QIC-150 drive can write only
QIC-150 format (write, write, write).
Messages about QIC-24 on a QIC-150 drive while attempting to
write to QIC-24 tapes translate to: wrong tape media for
writing For QIC-150 tape drives, this indicates that the
user is trying to write on a DC-300XL (or equivalent) tape.
Only DC-6150 (or equivalent) tapes can be used for writing.
Note: DC-6150 was formerly known as DC-600XTD.
The unlucky may also fall into the unreliable QIC-120 mode
where a QIC-150 drive was asked to write to a DC-600A tape.
Please avoid this unreliable operation. The DC-600A media
was not designed to work with the extra track density heads
and is not recommended.
Thomas P. Mitchell -- mitch@sgi.com
"All things in moderation; including Grammarians."