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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.carno.net.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!munnari.OZ.AU!news.ecn.uoknor.edu!feed1.news.erols.com!howland.erols.net!vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!saluki-news.it.siu.edu!slip106.termserv.siu.edu From: jimd@slip106.termserv.siu.edu (Jim Dutton) Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc Subject: Resolved: FT no longer reading tapes ? Date: Thu, 24 Apr 1997 22:29:53 CST Organization: Southern Illinois University Lines: 47 Sender: NNTP@slip106.termserv.siu.edu Message-ID: <24539fde.u9t27e.38f7b@slip106.termserv.siu.edu> Reply-To: jimd@slip106.termserv.siu.edu NNTP-Posting-Host: slip106.termserv.siu.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Comment: AmigaNOS v2.9p In-Reply-To: <5is8tg$9f0@saluki-news.it.siu.edu> (from jimd@dutton4.it.siu.edu (Jim Dutton)) (at 14 Apr 1997 03:39:28 GMT) Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:39694 In the end, it appears that the Jumbo tape drive had some kind of sustained read error (maybe I trapped one of those elusive "system bugs", and smashed it against the tape read/write head? I have heard of the body of a mosquito shutting off all air flow in the fuel needle/air jet in a large motorcycle, bringing it to a complete halt! To see if I could get something else to work with the tape drive, and maybe get some kind of response from it, I installed the included DOS tape drive, backup software, and used it to test the drive, and test a "good" tape. This was stuff that came with the GW-2000 system, but I didn't have originally - it was just found, today. The DOS software recognized the tape unit, as did FBSD, and when told to read a tape, it at first, reported it as "unformatted", as FBSD had. After removing one tape and inserting another that had failed before, and telling the DOS backup software to read the tape, SOMEthing changed= , and NOW, all of a sudden, the tape unit shifted into high speed read mode, and was able to successfully read the taee?!!?!?!?!?!? I verified this with another "bad" tape, and everything now seems to be working normally, again??? Hmmmmmm ...... Are there tape cleaning units for Jumbo-250 (DC2120 tape) types of units? Maybe that was all I really needed. Hi Jim, on Apr 14 you wrote: > Yesterday, I was "happily" restoring some backed up files from the > builtin FT tape drive (no - I don't have SCSI - this is a "hand-me- > down" unit), and I made the mistake of trying to LiSt the floppy > installed, at the same time. >=20 > The LS command returned nothing, which is somewhat unusual as in > the past, it would return "device busy" - which is to be expected. >=20 > Today, I tried to do some more restores, only the FT doesn't seem > to be able to read any of the previously used tapes, nor even a > brand new tape. It keeps reporting them as "unformatted"?? >=20 > I remade FT0 (via MAKEDEV), to no avail. So - what did I fry? >=20