Tape drive problem

[peterchu]

I have a DDS4 tape drive and running RH 8 system , I can use tar to backup/restore DDS3/4 tape in my drive , it all work fine , however , I can't list/restore a DDS3 tape that is made from other DDS3 tape drive ( also RH server ) , I use device /dev/st0 now , could suggest what is my problem caused ? should I use other device eg . /dev/st1 ... ? thx.

[Shaikh Imran]

Hi,
what is the error you are getting ?
Is the tape written in tar format only ?
But sure you don't have to use different device file for DDS3 tapes it whould work with the same device file as DDS4.

Regards,

[Stuart Browne]

Some things to look at.

Firstly, can you read the tape back in the machine that wrote to it?

If you can't, then it most probably won't work anywhere else properly.

Second, when putting it in the 2nd machine (with the DDS4 drive), what does the output of the command 'file -s /dev/st0' return after rewinding the tape? ('mt -f /dev/nst0 rewind')

Unless it returns 'tar' of some description, then tar won't read it.

If you've used some strange block size settings on the DDS3 drive, you'll probably also need to use the same settings on the DDS4 drive. You can use the 'mt -f /dev/nst0 getblk' on the DDS3 drive to find out.

[bhavin asokan · Accepted solution]

hi,

it may be like that you have taken backup in other formats or or due to blocksize specified.
you can check both drives are same make or not.there is a compatibility problem found between sony & hp dat drives.sometimes the dats written in sony drive are unable to read on hp drives.but the dats written in hp are not having this problem .

regds,
bhavin