🚀 go-pugleaf

Robert Chiaramonte <chiaramo@euclid.colorado.edu> writes:

>I am trying to get Ftape to access my tape drive.  When I try to use a
>command such as 'mt -f /dev/nrft0 status', the floppy drive whirrs for a
>little, and then I get a '/dev/nrft0: device not found' error.  Now the
>floppy is not mounted, so I don't understand why it is trying to access
>it.  The mt command autoloads the ftape module that came with the
>distribution properly....

There are several things that could be wrong.

  *  Make sure there is no floppy disk in the drive. Remove it completely.

  *  I assume your tapes are formatted. If not, you must format them with
     some W95 or W311 software. It takes about 3 hours to format a tape!
     Just buy formatted ones. Also, you must initialize the tape before
     writing: mt -f /dev/nftape erase
     This is only done once per tape.

  *  Some s/vga cards cause trouble on the DMA lines, particularly
     when X-windows is running. This is a design fault with the vga card.
     Often the ftape module will refuse to load when the card is at fault.
     I have two networked machines at home--
     one is a diskless client with a tape drive, no screen and no keyboard.
     X runs on the server and I do xon commands to run X jobs on the diskless
     machine. Even this setup causes trouble with the tape drive.
     Try using the tape drive without Xwindows running.

  *  Is your hardware too old?  Look at the boot-up sequence 
     (/usr/adm/syslog, messages, debug) and make sure there's a message
     saying the FDC is a post 1991.

--
Rowan Hughes, Maths Dept, James Cook University. x-csrdh@lion.jcu.edu.au