Hello Joshua, Thanks for your reply. After talking with Overland tech support I have reached at least one conclusion. The drive and the tape is AIT-1. AIT-2 is being reported by mt -f /dev/nst0 status. An AIT-1 drive cannot write to an AIT-2 tape per Overland Storage. 5 of the box of 10 that I got reported AIT-2 even though they are supposed to be AIT-1 tapes. My guess is that they are defective. The other 5, I was able to write to without a problem, finally.
The tapes I originally tried to write to were all bad which is why I assumed that something else was wrong. On Wed, 2004-02-04 at 09:31, Joshua Baker-LePain wrote: > On Tue, 3 Feb 2004 at 11:10am, Kent L. Nasveschuk wrote > > > > I have a RedHat 8.0 system running on an HP DL380 that has updated > > drivers for the raid and hot plug system. I have an Overland > > LoaderXpress autoloader, 20 tape magazine with a single Sony sdx-400c > > internal tape drive (AIT-2). > > I have a very similar unit -- actually, the loader is identical, but I've > got AIT3 drives. > > > When I try to tar a directory to the drive > > > > tar -cvf /dev/nst0 ./directory > > > > I get an error read-only file system.The tab on the tape is shut. > > > > Everything seems to be working as far as the autoloader and tape drive, > > but the tapes indicate write protect is on when it is not. > > > > See attached output from mt and mtx commands: > *snip* > > [EMAIL PROTECTED] root]# mt -f /dev/nst0 status > > SCSI 2 tape drive: > > File number=0, block number=-1, partition=0. > > Tape block size 512 bytes. Density code 0x31 (AIT-2). > > Soft error count since last status=0 > > General status bits on (5010000): > > WR_PROT ONLINE IM_REP_EN > > The block number seems a bit odd. What happens if you do 'mt rewind' > and then 'mt status'? Also, out of curiousity, what does 'tapeinfo -f > /dev/sg0' say? > > > [EMAIL PROTECTED] hugo]# tar -cvf /dev/nst0 ./database > > tar: /dev/nst0: Cannot open: Read-only file system > > tar: Error is not recoverable: exiting now > > Dig through the menus on the front panel of the loader. In my manual, I > see at least one option (under the "Escape" menu) where you can check the > drive status to see if the library thinks the drive is write protected. > Also, what does 'ls -l /dev/nst0*' say? Anything odd in the systems logs > regarding the st module? > > As an aside, your kernel version looks like a rather old one -- there have > been a lot of errate since that kernel. Upgrading it wouldn't be a bad > idea. -- Kent L. Nasveschuk <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
