> Date: Mon, 15 Apr 96 15:53:32 PST
> From: "Brett Glass" <Brett_Glass@ccgate.infoworld.com>

> > Next, I wanted to read miniroot off the tape.  I don't know
> > exactly what is wrong, but although netbsd boots fine from the tape
> > (stock 60 meg drive on an emulex), it seems unable to read from it
> > once booted.
> 
> This, plus frequent coredumps, were the reasons I had to give up on NetBSD
> for Sun3.  The tape driver does not work properly with the standard tape
> drive that came with Sun's own systems! I could not do backups, could not
> read or write tapes, could not write the miniroot except by booting SunOS's
> RAM disk kernel (munix) and using THAT to put it on the hard disk.
> (SunOS's tape drivers *do* work.) There was some talk on the list, but I
> never saw a fix.

The QIC-36 behind an Emulex MT02 used to work.  I just tried and
the tape driver persistently complains:

	venus# mt -f /dev/nrst0 rewind
	st0(si0:4:0): not ready, data = 00
	mt: /dev/nrst0: Input/output error

I'll ask those who have been in the scsi tape driver recently what
can be done to make that tape drive work again.

As for the frequent coredumps - sorry!  I'm trying to fix that
problem, but it is really elusive.  My latest hypothesis is that
there is a "missing interrupt protection" somewhere, because I
can make the problem disappear by reducing interrupts...

> I also had to use SunOS's RAM disk kernel format drives, as NetBSD's
> miniroot did not have a low-level format utility.

True, though it is not generally necessary to low-level format.

Gordon