Error writing to scsi tape drive.

[Chris_815]

tar: /dev/st0: Wrote only 0 of 10240 bytes
tar: Error is not recoverable: exiting now

./staging/
./staging/jitsicpdc
tar: /dev/st0: Wrote only 0 of 10240 bytes
tar: Error is not recoverable: exiting now

My tape drive is detected: (/proc/scsi/scsi)

Attached devices:
Host: scsi1 Channel: 00 Id: 03 Lun: 00
Vendor: HP Model: Ultrium 2-SCSI Rev: F48D
Type: Sequential-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 03

and the modules are loaded (lsmod)

Module Size
loop 8496
vmnixmod 201952
bcm5700 79428
st 25940

so it is being loaded... same message.
tar: /dev/st0: Wrote only 0 of 10240 bytes
tar: Error is not recoverable: exiting now
Any ideas?

[Stuart Browne]

What does 'mt -f /dev/nst0 status' return?

Does it do this with every tape? Is the cleaning light on the tape drive?

[Chris_815]

Bad command... seems like mt doesn't exist...

[Stuart Browne]

?!?

Install it then.

'mt' is the 'Magnetic Tape' control program, and it's very hard to do much with a tape device without it.

[Chris_815]

Is there anything I can do and or try without installing this first? If I do this, I might break my support agreement with what the server is used for...

If not, do you know where I can download this file?

[Stuart Browne]

What distribution are you running?

And no, not really.

Any errors you get (such as 'Error is not recoerable') are pretty vague. You can try dumping to the tape using 'cpio' or 'dd', but you'll get equally as vague error messages, and you can't see what settings the tape drive it's self is using.

If you're using RH (any flavour), you should also have access to 'up2date', which can install 'mt' for you (up2date -i mt), or you can log into the RHN and find the package appropriate for your distribution.

[Roderik Hamers]

the problem stand that your are trying to put data on a /dev/ device, as far as i know you need to mount the /dev/ device first before you can put data on that specific device.

"mkdir /mnt/tape/;mount /dev/st0 /mnt/tape/"
should do the trick in my opinion.

[Stuart Browne]

Erm, you can't mount a tape device like you can a filesystem on Linux.

[Chris_815]

I tried it anyways and didn't work :(

[Gopi Sekar]

mt is a very important and handy tool for handling the tape drive.

just a basic question, have you tried using another tape cassette. the problem could just be that the cassette is full.


also if you have any other linux system where mt is installed, try connecting this tape devic e to that (only if it is external) and try accessing it using mt.

Hope this helps,
Gopi

[Ivan Ferreira]

Maybe you are trying to save more data than you can. Try using the --multi-volume option.

Make sure that you are using a certified tape cartridge.

Try specifying differents block sizes, check the hardware manual for recommended values.

[Ivan Ferreira]

Some people solved the problem using a block size of 32:

tar c -b 32 -f /dev/st0 "Files"