On Mon, 21 May 2007 00:33:01 +0200, Emmanuel MOUNIER wrote:

> I am using a Travan 20/40GB tape on a PV100T tape driver into my DELL 
> poweredge SC1420 machine runing with NetBSD 2.0.
> 
> Very often, when I want to rewind my tape, I am getting the following 
> message : netbsd: st0: WARNING: cannot revert to default density
[...] 
> Up to now, I have not been able to make a backup copy on the tape.
> 
> Can anyone tell me what should be the default density param for my config ?
> 
> Any experince with this tape driver on similar config ?
> 
> Any further advice re the backup using star would be appreciated.
> 
> Regards

Hi,

From the specs of your Dell powervault 100t:
http://www.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/pvaul_100tdat72?c=us&l=en&s=bsd&cs=04

I would use 38 (DDS-4) mt density option:
http://netbsd.gw.com/cgi-bin/man-cgi?mt+1+NetBSD-2.0

But maybe your tape is not DDS-4 compatible, so not compatible
with your pv100t. So try 33 (QIC-20GB) which could be compatible with your
travan tape but not with your pv100t.

Another solution would be to use DDS-4 tapes like this one:
http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=dhs&cs=19&sku=340-1896

Best regards,
Didier.