From owner-freebsd-questions Mon Jun 30 07:01:51 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id HAA25840 for questions-outgoing; Mon, 30 Jun 1997 07:01:51 -0700 (PDT) Received: from beowulf.utmb.edu (beowulf.utmb.edu [129.109.59.83]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id HAA25835 for ; Mon, 30 Jun 1997 07:01:48 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from bdodson@localhost) by beowulf.utmb.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) id IAA04541; Mon, 30 Jun 1997 08:59:16 -0500 (CDT) Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 08:59:16 -0500 (CDT) From: "M. L. Dodson" Message-Id: <199706301359.IAA04541@beowulf.utmb.edu> To: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG, nathan@senate.org Subject: Re: QIC-80 Floppy Tapes X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Sender: owner-questions@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > > Hi! I want to set up my Conner QIC-80 floppy tape with FreeBSD. I see it > detected on startup. I did a MAKEDEV ft0 and came up with these files: > > ft0 ft0a rft0 rft0a > > If I understand correctly, the rft* are the ones that rewind after every > operation, and the ft* ones aren't. When I'm using tar or mt to perform backups > rewinds or other such operations, would I use *0 or *0a? > Nope. Floppy tapes aren't accessed directly by the device node (ever). All access is via the ft program. man ft. Do yourself a favor and dump this floppy tape device. It won't work worth a damn on any unix. Any cheap, supported, (even PIO types) scsi controller plus an old QIC 150 drive (available for <$100 on the surplus market) will set up a system where you will actually do backups. If you stay with the floppy tape, things will be so painful you will fall far behind on your backups. The controller that comes with scsi zip drives comes to mind (if you don't mind mounting the QIC 150 internally). Better still is to get a reasonable scsi controller and slowly migrate to all scsi, dumping the IDE mess as well. > Sorry about this week's f..l..o..w of questions :) I will try to make this one > of my last, after upgrading to 2.2-stable anyway :) > -- M. L. Dodson bdodson@scms.utmb.edu 409-772-2178 FAX: 409-772-1790