Hi!
[reformatted long (up to 470+ chars) to something readable.
I don't mind longer lines in logfiles, but in text?]
Trying to kill the keyboard, [EMAIL PROTECTED] produced:
> Sorry about the length of this, I'm hoping to provide all the
> relevant information for this problem....
It would have helped if you had left out the HTML part (which
does not provide any additional information, but is 1.6 times
longer than the ASCII version!) :-/
> 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).
OK, rebuild the kernel or at least (and with no guarantee)
remove all ftape'ish modules (ftape, zftape, ...) so you
won't run into old (3.04) modules. Do run depmod -a after
you installed the ftape-4.x-unstable modules. (You did not
include the being-insmodded messaged for the modules, so it's
hard to say if they are of the correct version.)
> I have compiled and installed ftape-4.x-1999_06_30 successfully,
> and inserted the modules ftape, zftape, and ftape-internal.
You did use modprobe, so your conf.modules is actually used?
(insmod does not care about that stuff.)
> To test the device, I tried 'mt -f /dev/ftape' which returned
> the following:
You will want to use ftmt instead of mt.
> 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
That sounds like
"Data Segment Too Long -- Logical Forward or Pause"
(in FTAPE/include/linux/qic117.h). Hmmm.
> (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.
Ftape fails to read the header segment (sort of the 'FAT'
of the tape) and fails, because (I think) the data segment is
too long for the tape. Then it tries for the backup (2nd copy)
and fails as well.
> ftape-ctl.c (ftape_print_history) - Warning 1 media defects!.
That is the inablility to read the header.
> 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
Kernel/modules and ftformat are *not* working, presumably
because the versions are incompatible.
> 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.
I'd first rebuild the kernel completely, remove *all* old
modules (or move them) and rebuild ftape after booting with
the new kernel. Also rebuild the ftape-tools (ftformat & co).
I'd also clean the head of the tape drive as your user manual
says it's to be done. Before accessing the tapes, try a ftmt
retension (floppy tapes are very sensitive to stretch and to
temperature changes.
You may also want to upgrade to kernel 2.2.10.
-Wolfgang
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