ftape compiled, errors on device

[Max A. Schneider]

Sorry about the length of this, I'm hoping to provide all the relevant information for this problem....   I'm running RH 6.0, kernel 2.2.5-15, and as far as I can tell, the kernel is built with module support for ftape (I haven't rebuilt the kernel since installing it, and I can insmod and rmmod ftape).  I have compiled and installed ftape-4.x-1999_06_30 successfully, and inserted the modules ftape, zftape, and ftape-internal.  My floppy tape drive is a Colorado 1400 Jumbo, which uses the 400-foot minicartridges, QIC-3020MC format.  My /etc/conf.modules looks like this:   alias char-major-27 zftape options ftape ft_fdc_driver=ftape-internal options ftape-internal ft_fdc_base=0x3f0 ft_fdc_irq=6 ft_fdc_dma=2   The ftape-internal settings I determined by looking at /var/log/messages on a previous load of ftape-internal (the message indicated it had probed and found this device at slot 0).  The tape drive is the second device on the floppy drive controller (the first device is the floppy drive).   To test the device, I tried 'mt -f /dev/ftape' which returned the following:   qic-117 drive type = 0x011c3 File number=-1, block number=-1. mt_resid: 0, mt_erreg: 0x1b1f mt_dsreg: 0x638865, mt_gstat: 0x41000000 General status bits on (41000000):  BOT ONLINE   I then tried 'tar cvf /dev/ftape /root', and got the following error messages:   tar: Cannot write to /dev/ftape: Input/output error tar: Error is not recoverable: exiting now   I also got the following messages in /var/log/messages:   fdc-rw.c (seek_forward) - read_id failed completely ftape-rw.c (determine position) - ftape_report_drive_status: 0x24 (above appears about 100 times, with the following message inserted occasionally) ftape-rw.c (ftape_start_tape) - panic: location not known then.... ftape-rw.c (ftape_start_tape) - failed to reposition. ftape-read.c (ftape_read_segment) - Error: segment 0 unreachable. ftape-read.c (ftape_read_header_segment) - header segment damaged, trying backup. (and then the above few lines are repeated) then.... ftape-rw.c (ftape_start_tape) - failed to reposition. ftape-read.c (ftape_read_segment) - Error: segment 1 unreachable. ftape-read.c (ftape_read_header_segment) - no readable header segment found. zftape-read.c (zft_read_header_segments - ftape_read_header_segment(zftape->ftape, zftape->hseg_buf) failed: -5. zftape-ctl.c (zft_check_write_access) - zft_read_header_segments(zftape) failed: -5. zftape-write.c (check_write_access) - zft_check_write_access(zftape, pos) failed: -5. zftape-write.c (_zft_write) - check_write_access(zftape, req_len, &zftape->volume, &zftape->pos, zftape->blk_sz) failed: -5 ftape-ctl.c (ftape_print_history) - == Non-fatal errors this run: ==. ftape-ctl.c (ftape_print_history) - fdc isr statistics: id_am_errors : 14 id_crc_errors: 0 data_am_errors: 0 data_crc_errors: 0 overrun_errors: 0 no_data_errors: 0 retries : 7 ftape-ctl.c (ftape_print_history) - ecc statistics: crc_errors : 0 crc_failures : 0 ecc_failures : 0 sectors corrected: 0 ftape-ctl.c (ftape_print_history) - Warning 1 media defects!. ftape-ctl.c (ftape_print_history) - tape motion statistics: repositions : 10   I then tried '/usr/local/bin/ftformat -f /dev/ftape -p qic-standard=QIC-3020', which produced the following messages:   Unknown format API version. Giving up. Ioctl error sending enter primary mode command: Permission denied   The messages in /var/log/messages were similar to the above, with the following added at the end after 'header segment 1 unreachable': ftape-read.c (ftape_read_header_segment) - no readable header segment found. zftape-read.c (zft_read_header_segments - ftape_read_header_segment(zftape->ftape, zftape->hseg_buf) failed: -5. zftape-ctl.c (mtioftcmd) - driver needs to be in raw mode for this ioctl. (history messages are the same as above)   I have tried this with different tapes, and gotten the same results.  I'm at a loss of where to proceed next - any help will be greatly appreciated.     Thanks,   Max