howardl@wb3ffv.ampr.org ( WB3FFV) (02/09/90)
Hello All, Hopefully somebody in this group will have an idea as to how I can solve my tape problem (this seems to be a hot topic here :-). I am running AT&T UNIX V/386 Release 3.2, and use to have at different times a 60 and 120 meg Everex tape backup installed. I decided to go with the new 150meg backup from Everex (QIC-150/QIC-36) since both the 60 and 120 worked fine under the AT&T qt tape driver. Well to my suprise I found that the 150meg unit will read tapes all day long, but write, forget it! I tried the DOS utils that were supplied with the tape unit and it works fine, so then I tried the dos utils from the 120meg unit, and as expected it failed to write. I tried calling Everex tech support, and the only advice they gave me was to send it back and get the 120 if that would work (needless to say I bought the 150meg because I want a 150meg backup, what a bunch of idiots!!). If anybody knows where I can get a working driver for the 150 meg unit, it would be greatly appreicated. Also if anybody knows what they changed in the 150meg tape unit it would also be helpful, as I can get to the driver sources if needed. I just can't understand why Everex is unwilling to help somebody fix a problem, or at least tell us what they changed so we can fix it!! Thanks in advance for any help! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Internet : howardl@wb3ffv.ampr.org | Howard D. Leadmon UUCP : wb3ffv!howardl | Advanced Business Solutions TELEX : 152252474 | 210 E. Lombard St - Suite 410 Telephone : (301)-335-2206 | Baltimore, MD 21202
ronp@tslwat.UUCP (Ron Pfeifle) (02/14/90)
In article <2574@wb3ffv.ampr.org> howardl@wb3ffv.ampr.org ( WB3FFV) writes: >Well to my suprise I found that the 150meg unit >will read tapes all day long, but write, forget it! I a similar problem using the sysadmin backup to do backups. New (Unused) tapes just wouldn't work. *However*, tapes that had already been written on were fine. Turns out that "/usr/bin/backup" has no problems writing to "unwritten' tapes. So, whenever I have a new tape, I first use /usr/bin/backup to write an empty file to the tape. Then sysadmin backup doesn't complain. Ron