Date: Mon, 8 Sep 1997 00:23:04 -0400 (EDT) From: Gene Stark <gene@starkhome.cs.sunysb.edu> To: Chris Dillon <cdillon@tri-lakes.net> Cc: freebsd-hardware@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Adding new tape geometries to ft... Message-ID: <199709080423.AAA01759@starkhome.cs.sunysb.edu> In-Reply-To: Chris Dillon's message of Sun, 07 Sep 1997 19:25:07 -0000 (GMT) References: <XFMail.970907195520.cdillon@tri-lakes.net>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
> However, rather than an immediate error, it begins to work, UNTIL >it reaches the end of the first track.. It then reverses direction, and >the tape continues to advance at about 1cm every second (short bursts). >Here's exactly what I did (console error output included): > > tar cf - /usr/ports/distfiles/ | ft "test" >(works fine until it hits the end of the first tape track...) > ft0: unrecoverable write error on block 3200 >(I yank the tape out of the drive now... its been about 5 minutes) > ft0: unrecoverable write error on block 3201 > ft0: unrecoverable write error on block 3202 > ft0: unrecoverable write error on block 3203 The ft driver has some serious race condition problems, which for me began to show up when I upgraded from a 486/33 to a P133. I have a Colorado Jumbo 250. In my case, the problems occurred just after starting to write. The driver would use up all its internal write buffers and then deadlock with symptoms such as you describe. As the write error recovery code in the driver is commented out or not enabled, it goes into a loop trying over and over again to write without failing out. I have submitted at least one or two bug reports on this (search the bugs list for "stark"), with some fixes that at least for me mostly worked around the problem enough so that I could use the tape. The driver is complicated, and besides not having the proper documentation on the ft device, I didn't spend enough time on it to fully understand what might be going wrong. There doesn't seem to be anyone in the FreeBSD group who seems very interested in the driver at this point. Although my Jumbo 250 is still installed, I have quit using it because I have been experiencing serious problems with lack of stability of the media (i.e. my tapes all go bad in an avalanche of failures after two years or so). I can't afford to run DOS for the many hours it would take to reformat the tapes, even if it helped, which it usually doesn't. The tapes are way too expensive to keep buying new ones all the time. Basically I no longer trust the tapes, which makes them pretty useless for backup purposes. Also, although the 120MB (native) capacity was OK back when my system had one 340MB and one 540MB drive, it is no longer very useful for dealing with the multi-gigabyte drives I now have. - Gene Stark
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?199709080423.AAA01759>