On Thu, 17 Feb 2005, Hauke Fath wrote:

> Am 17.02.2005 um 1:35 Uhr +0200 schrieb Peter L. Peres:
>> Ok, some follow below. Keep in mind that I do not know if the drive is ok. 
>> It did not pass its self test but the code it flashed relates to a lock
>
> What sort of lock?

The code flashed out when running self test 2 says SAFE was high when it 
should be low. I don't know what that is and there are no clues in the 
107 page manual (word search in pdf file). This error is error code 0x0A 
flashed out on the front led of the drive in test mode 2 (user test), as 
documented on page 101 of the manual. The flashes are encoded as 8 
flashes separated by a blank period. Long flash = 1, short flash = 0. I 
am mentioning this because this does not appear in the manual. The 
manual is "SLR (TDC 4000) SERIES REFERENCE MANUAL" downloaded from 
inostor (or tandberg, I forget which).

>> and not to a failure. I do not know enough about this streamer to draw 
>> conclusions.
>
> The manuals should be available from tandberg.com.

They are, in a way, from inostor. This drive is really obsolete, I was 
lucky to find the table with the error codes.

> That doesn't sound like a drive hardware error. Can you provide the QIC 
> cartridge type? The Tandberg docs should list compatible media.

I used a known good QIC-150 tape that had previously been written and 
read in a Viper drive on the same machine and interface.

> There are two issues with the NetBSD tape driver and QIC drives, AFAIR:
> (1) Block size where the driver assumes fixed, the newer drives work better 
> with variable.
> (2) EOM, where the drive internally duplicates the EOD mark; since NetBSD 
> writes two EOD marks, you end up with three on the tape. This can confuse 
> later reads or appends.

Aha, this explains problems I had wih the Viper. There were some 
messages in this forum a month ago about this (thread started by me). A 
an example, the linux mt program can write one or two EOMs (one to leave 
it to the tape to put on the second I think).

>> this drive is almost 10 years old and I am not sure whether I want to 
>> waste a lot of time on it. An equally old Viper QIC-150MB worked well with 
>> this setup (just for testing).
>
> Usually, these drives tend to last forever...

I have the impression that the Viper is much better built mechanically 
(any locksmith could maintain it).

> What do you get from an 'mt status /dev/nrst0', or an 'mt erase /dev/nrst0'?

mt status says drive is in mode 0 and no media in it (with the QIC-150 
inside). The Tandberg compatibility table says it should read this tape.

mt erase fails with io error immediately on the command line and the 
drive light goes from green to amber. Then I have to reset the scsibus 
to be able to talk to the drive again. All other commands excepting 
status do the same.

I think that the drive is bad. I will try it again with a known good 2GB 
cartridge and see what happens. I do not have such a cartridge now, it 
will take some time.

thanks,
Peter