On "Mon, 15 Jan 2001 15:19:36 +0000", Chris.Smith@raytheon.co.uk wrote:
>> The dmesg output looks normal; I've got such a drive on
>> an IPC that I'm running.  As for the error on mt....
>> Is this the only drive?
>
>Yep - its the only drive.
>
>> If so, what does just `mt rew` get you?  If that's giving
>> you errors I'd be suspicious of the tape(s).  I've been
>> dealing with about a 14% failure rate on new tapes, and
>> the ones that aren't bad don't necessarily last that long.
>
>It's not tapes AFAIK - the motor doesn't even power up so I
>can't tell.  I've also never used QIC-150 tapes (only DATs
>in WinNT boxen unfortunately), so I don't know what typical
>QIC drives are like sound or look wise :P

They're loud.  At least the ones I've used have been fairly
loud.  Generally, the tape will go in with a solid THUNK,
and the drive will probe it about two seconds later, with
a loud whirr WHIRR whirr.

> I will try `mt
>rew' when I get home as I'm at work in the world of fast
>systems now :)  I specified the tape name while doing it
>before aka which might have buggered something up:-
>
>     # mt -t /dev/rst0 rewind
>
>Normally I get a message such as:-
>
>st0: I/O error
>
>and the tape just sits silently.  I'm beginning to think
>that the drive has had it.  Either that or I'm stupid (a
>far more probable hypothesis).

If it's not even probing the tapes, then something is
almost certainly not right with the hardware.  As per
usual, check cabing, termination, ID, sacrifice blood[1],
etc.

[1]  Not strictly required, but it seems to help with most
     problems involving SCSI chains.
-- 
T. M. Pederson <salvage@plethora.net>
PGP key fingerprint = 48 94 7A 54 59 B6 C0 77  1F F6 94 55 0C 55 51 C4
"...and so the moral of the story is: Always make backups."
"But that was the moral last night, and the night before that too!"