VanLUG Email Archive
Brian Edmonds (brian@gweep.bc.ca)
Sun, 17 Jan 1999 23:54:03 -0800
Harondel J Sibble <help@pdscc.com> writes:
> tar (granchild) : cannot write to dev/st0. input/output error
> tar (granchild) : error is not recoverable, exiting now
Is SCSI and SCSI tape support compiled into your kernel? Do you need
to load any modules for them? Alternately, do you maybe need to use a
certain blocking (-b arg to tar) to make the tape drive like you?
> so what about "formatting" the tape?
Dunno, this is not relevant to my 8mm drive. I seem to recall some need
formatting, but I don't recall this being true of DAT either.
> also how does one find out what is on the tape when it comes time to
> restore?
You need to find some way of labelling your tapes. On my backups I
first write a record with the type of the backup and the output of date
to give me some idea what's on the tape even if the labels get mixed up.
Here's what the first "file" on the tape currently in my drive contains:
level 1 dump: Sun Jan 17 03:00:02 PST 1999
> lastly should one rewind the tape (and how do you do this) b4 passing
> it to someone else so they can get access to the tarfiles on the tape?
You should look at the mt command. My 8mm drive automatically rewinds
before ejecting -- check the manual for your drive.
> any good DETAILED faq's? none of the ones I've found so far go into
> much detail, especially theory and troubleshooting stuff.
Dunno, I've pretty much just played with it. Exabyte has a pretty
decent website, even for my old drive. You might want to check the site
of your drive's manufacturer.
Brian.
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