help using a tape devide Seagate STT20000A

Question

Hi:   Hello everybody.  Im new in this forum. So i will try to explain what i need to know, and i hope somebody can help me out, cuz i really need some help.   I have a Dell Power Edge 500SC, and i install Linux Debian Woody 3. This computer its a mini server, and i need to back up important information, so i decided to use the tape device. The problem is that is not possible to use it. I think is because i dont know how to do that. What i did is:   In the lilo.conf archive the next line was added :  append = 'hdd=ide-scsi'   I restart my computer and it shows me something like this   hdd: Seagate STT20000A, ATAPI TAPE drive scsi0 : SCSI host adapter emulation for IDE ATAPI devices Vendor: Seagate Model: STT20000A Rev: 8A51 Type: Sequential-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 02 So i suposed that everything was ok, but when i was trying to copy something with the next command, there was an error:   tar cf /dev/st0 /etc tar: Removing leading `/' from member names tar: /dev/st0: Wrote only 0 of 10240 bytes tar: Error is not recoverable: exiting now   And this is my problem . I also tried to see the status of the device with    mt -f /dev/st0 status   and the next message was showed:   mt: /dev/st0: Input/output error   Somebody nows whats going on??? I really need your help   Regards,

SetH37 · Answer

Yop ;)

I am using a DELL PowerEdge SC420 with the same tape recorder as you. We are following the DELL's installation instructions and the recorder has been really functional for 2 months. Then, since few days, backups can't made and we don't know exactly why. We are using a Fedora Core 3 Operating System.
Have you ever got this problem ? We have tested the recorder on a WinXP Pro SP2 and it is functional. I know it is maybe too late for your problem but was your recorder really functional ? Did you test it an another computer ?
Thanks for your Help...

SetH37 · Answer

no, sorry. I've never heard anything about this problem because i am working in a new small french company and i've never used tape recorders on linux systems before.
Somebody suggests us to use Kudzu software to make a new detection of the recorder.
Have you ever heard about this software before ?
Thanks a lot for your replies...

Cinderello · Answer

Thanks for your reply, but i havent used the tape recorder yet. Because when im trying to use it it shows me an error , something related to BAD DATA. I have read a lot of manuals and how to's, and i think that the problems is that the heads of the tape recorder needs to be cleaned. Do you know something about this? Regards,

Cinderello · Answer

I dont think so, i have never heard about that software Is it shareware? Do you a link where i can download it?

SetH37 · Answer

I am not sure but it seems to me that Kudzu is distributed with any RedHat or Fedora Core Linux operating system. Don't worry about that : i don't think that it is the solution for my problem.
I have finished my workday so see you maybe tomorrow !
thanks for your previous quick replies ;)

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