[comp.sys.next] Exabyte problem

paul@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Paul Lansky) (03/07/91)

I discovered, much to my horror, that on the Exabyte 8mm
tape drive, you can only write at the beginning of the tape
or after the last written file.  Here is the statement on the
man page for xt

write()
          See write(2).  This operation is not legal at all
          times; for example, after reading a portion of a tape,
          a write command is illegal if more data exists on the
          tape.  One can only write to a tape if the tape is at
          BOT or at the end of recorded data.

In the documentation for our unit (an Apunix drive) it describes
an option which allows you to keep large interfile gaps to allow
you to write between old files, but I see know way to do this
with the SCSI driver.  Does anyone have any workarounds for this?

Paul Lansky
music
Princeton

paul@Princeton.edu