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Xref: sserve comp.periphs:4340 comp.unix.misc:9147 comp.unix.bsd:12659 comp.unix.pc-clone.32bit:4448 Newsgroups: comp.periphs,comp.unix.misc,comp.unix.bsd,comp.unix.pc-clone.32bit Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!news.Hawaii.Edu!ames!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!swrinde!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!math.fu-berlin.de!mailgzrz.TU-Berlin.DE!zib-berlin.de!news.dfn.de!news.dkrz.de!news.rrz.uni-hamburg.de!lutzifer!wavehh.hanse.de!cracauer From: cracauer@wavehh.hanse.de (Martin Cracauer) Subject: Re: [Q] 9-track tape drives? Message-ID: <1993Sep20.094908.28424@wavehh.hanse.de> Organization: Hanse Networking e. V., Hamburg, Germany References: <26j2ts$fct@constellation.ecn.uoknor.edu> <13621@lhdsy1.lahabra.chevron.com> <270oq9$v4@belfast.dcd.wa.gov.au> Date: Mon, 20 Sep 93 09:49:08 GMT Lines: 41 juliane@belfast.dcd.wa.gov.au (Julian Elischer) writes: >In article <26j2ts$fct@constellation.ecn.uoknor.edu> ngorelic@speclab.cr.usgs.gov writes: >>Does anyone know of any 9-track tape drives compatable with >>PC based unix? (386BSD, BSDI, SCO, Dell or Consensys) >>(I am forced to buy 9-track, it was not an option) >> >>Has anyone had any good/bad experiences with these? >> >Almost any scsi 9-track drive should be usable under the 386bsd scsi system >If you have troubles, I'll personally want to know why, and will MAKE it work >8-) (I wrote it) We've got ciper/pertec drives, one with a ISA-Controller and one SCSI drive. The ISA-Card with the MS-DOS driver works, but the driver for SCO UNIX could not even be loaded. We decided to buy a second drive with SCSI to run it with a SPARC. We tried several SPARCs and a Linux-PC, but the drives reported read errors and gave up. The same drive with a MS-DOS-based host (using an Adaptec card) with a special Backup software reads THE SAME tapes without problems. We were not able to fix the read errors under UNIX and we think that the DOS Software for the adaptec uses some special control messages for the drive. So far we found nobody who knows something about it and we will return the SCSI drive and stick with ISA-controller-based one with MS-DOS-Software. So, I would be careful with both, a drive with its own controller (the UNIX driver could be unuseable) and with a SCSI drive. Using the SCSI drive with specific software is not the same as using a standard tape driver from a UNIX system. -- %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% Martin Cracauer <cracauer@wavehh.hanse.de>,Voice+4940-5221829,Fax.-5228536