Hi there.

I am the (happy?) owner of a Powertec SCSI-2 interface upgraded to
an Ultra SCSI-3 type and a SONY SDT-7000 tape-streamer.

I do occasionally experience errors when I try to read big files
from tar-archives.

On RISC OS I use Frank Lancaster's tar (v1.1-o IIRC). Sometimes I
can read a complete tape without problems, sometimes I can read
nothing at all and sometimes I can read some of the tape and then
suddenly the tape-streamer stops working. The only way to interrupt
the tar-program/computer is to use Alt-Break to get an error
("filecore in use" IIRC) for all active task. When this situation
occur, I have to reboot the system again :-(

The command I use for reading a tape is: tar -xvf SCSI::4.$


On NetBSD/arm the situation is slightly better. Here I use
the command: tar -xvf /dev/rst0, and it is always possible
to read some of the tape, but when reading big files and
appearently always on the same position on the tape the
tape-streamer and computer freezes. I have discovered that by
turning off the tape-streamer power-switch the computer awakes
again (but I guess this kind of artificial resurrection is
not good for the tapes), and the following errors are written
to /var/log/messages (errors from 2 different tapes):

May 21 22:58:50 nethotel /netbsd: sfasintr: Unexpected disconnection
May 21 22:58:50 nethotel /netbsd: sfasintr: u 0 s 2 p 0 f 1 c 8
May 21 22:58:54 nethotel /netbsd: st0(ptsc0:0:0): unit attention,
     data = 00 00 00 00 29 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 4f 4f 4f

May 21 23:11:53 nethotel /netbsd: sfasintr: Unexpected disconnection
May 21 23:11:53 nethotel /netbsd: sfasintr: u 0 s 2 p 0 f 1 c 8
May 21 23:11:57 nethotel /netbsd: st0(ptsc0:0:0): unit attention,
     data = 00 00 00 00 29 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 4f 4f 4f

Appearently, it is always the same messages no matter which tape
causes the problem. The tapes were originally written on a
HP-UX 9000 system, and it is still possible to read the tapes
on this system without any error.

Atm I have at least 2 tapes which I'm unable to read. The reading
stops when reading files of sizes ~10MB and ~111MB respectively.

Does anybody know what is causing these problems and what I can do
to avoid them.

Regards
   Ib-Michael
-- 
Ib-Michael Martinsen
Email at work: imm@kmd.dk (until 31-may-1998)
Email at home: imm@nethotel.dk
Fidomail:      2:234/181.9

Running RiscBSD v1.3a on an Acorn RiscPC with a 202.4 MHz StrongArm processor.