Hello all!
I just got an HP 7979A 9 track tape drive and I'm having some minor
difficulties with it. I compile a kernel with mt support and the drive gets
detected correctly on boot. After cd /dev ; ./MAKEDEV mt0 I get these files
in /dev:
<snip>
nrmt0
nrmt8
rmt0
rmt4
rmt8
rmt12
<snap>
Okay, I must confess in being a newbie when it comes to 9 track drives, so
what on earth are these ???? I know nrmt* is no-rewind-on-close, but are the
[0,4,8,12] different densities or what ?

I tried almost every combination of mt -f /dev/rmt[insert number here] stat
but no go. I always get "can't get stat.... bp== NULL" (hazy memory). The
tape is loaded (old VMS-tape), and the drive shows write en, BOT, online and
1600.

Every single operation I try ends up with mt0: drive offline. I've tried
tar, dump, dd etc..

One problem might be the configuration, because I got the drive from an old
HP3000 system and I didn't get any documentation with it.

Does anybody still have these things and do they work ? *Any* help
appreciated!! (Oh yes, 1.3.2 userland, 1.3.3 & 1.3.2 kernels)

ps. what kind of a thingie is 9142 cartridge drive ?

--
Jarkko Teppo
jarkko.teppo@nfp.fi