I had the same error and after much reading found it necessary to
include a blocksize for cpio or afio. Tar works fine with defaults. Using
afio I use:
find /root -print|afio -o -b 10k -Z /dev/qft0
to backup the /root directory for example. Without "-b 10k" I
get the invalid argument error which I guess cpio (and afio) is reporting.
I still find it confusing though, for sometimes I see a blocksize of 5120
when doing a 'status' command on a written tape (??) but it works!
Gerald Bryant
On Tue, 5 Jan 1999, Denney, Richard M. wrote:
> I first want to thank the helpful folks who replied to a previous post of
> mine concerning getting ftape to work with a Ditto Easy 3200 parallel port
> drive.
>
>
> I now have ftape 4.02 installed and working well on an IBM Aptiva S90 and
> L61 (pentium II 200 and 300 MHz, respectivley) with ftmt, vtblc and tar run
> from xterm. However, I have been told that cpio is superior to tar as a
> backup utility, but I am having no success getting cpio to write to my drive
> (a Ditto Easy 3200 parallel port drive which uses bpck-fdc.o).
>
> My "tar" archives write and retrieve with no reported errors at a
> ft_fdc_rate_limit=1000, ft_fdc_threshold=15. (The "status" command says that
> it should work at 2000, but though it works, it "shoeshines" badly at the
> higher speed.") If I type the command:
>
> "find . -name '*' -print | cpio -o -H crc > cpio.vol", cpio writes a file
> "cpio.vol" which appears to contain all the files in the current directory,
> as expected.
>
>
> However, if I attempt to write this to /dev/qft0 with the command:
>
> find . -name '*' -print | cpio -o -H crc | /dev/qft0,
>
> I get the message:
>
> cpio: write error: Invalid argument
> Broken pipe".
>
> I have tried using /dev/nqft0 and /dev/nrawft0, with the same result.
> Can anyone tell me what I am doing wrong here?
>
> Perhaps related to this problem is why I cannot use cat to read the tape
> archive? The command:
>
> cat /dev/qft0 yields the error:
>
> cat: /dev/qft0 :Invalid argument.
>
> Any suggestions appreciated.
> Can anyone tell me what I am doing wrong here?
>
> Perhaps related to this problem is why I cannot use cat to read the tape
> archive? The command:
>
> " cat /dev/qft0" causes the drive to reposition, then give the error:
>
> "cat: /dev/qft0: Invalid argument".
>
