Path: csiph.com!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!individual.net!not-for-mail From: John-Paul Stewart Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.hardware Subject: Re: Defective DAT drive or D-bus problem? Date: Sat, 4 Jun 2016 21:52:46 -0400 Lines: 32 Message-ID: References: <87mvn1f4xb.fsf@engels.histomat.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: individual.net 5dIU5miglSn91LgfqkrSfgwaxDt/ThQkImswB/226T/KfyBGcU Cancel-Lock: sha1:8s10QNDy7gCrfzDn7qA1xP/Wtx8= X-Mozilla-News-Host: news://news.individual.net User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:45.0) Gecko/20100101 Icedove/45.1.0 In-Reply-To: <87mvn1f4xb.fsf@engels.histomat.net> Xref: csiph.com comp.os.linux.hardware:3135 On 04/06/16 09:40 AM, Haines Brown wrote: > I installed an old and long unused WangDAT 3100 drive in a Debian Etch > box by means of an Adaptec 2906 SCSI-PCI adapter card. [snip] > $ mt -f /dev/st0 stat > drive type = 114 > drive status = 318767616 > sense key error = 0 > residue count = 0 > residue count = 0 > file number = -1 > block number = -1 Is there actually a tape in the drive? File and block numbers of -1 usually correspond to there being no tape. If there's one in it, they should be 0 to indicate "beginning of tape" or positive numbers to indicate any other position. If there is a tape in there, then it's possible that the drive is not correctly sensing the tape's presence or (maybe) that the tape itself is bad. When was the last time you ran a cleaning tape through the DAT drive? I doubt that would affect tape detection, but you never know. If you can, open up the drive and physically inspect its insides. Various types of old tape drives have problems with their internal rubber rollers turning to sticky goo with age. That, in turn, can damage tapes when the sticky goo transfers from the roller to the tape medium itself. If that's the case, do NOT run any more tapes through the drive (not even a cleaning tape!) until the rollers are replaced.