From owner-freebsd-questions  Thu Jan  8 14:44:59 1998
Return-Path: <owner-freebsd-questions>
Received: (from root@localhost)
          by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id OAA11617
          for questions-outgoing; Thu, 8 Jan 1998 14:44:59 -0800 (PST)
          (envelope-from owner-freebsd-questions)
Received: from iafnl.es.iaf.nl (uucp@iafnl.es.iaf.nl [195.108.17.20])
          by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id OAA11565;
          Thu, 8 Jan 1998 14:44:38 -0800 (PST)
          (envelope-from wilko@yedi.iaf.nl)
Received: by iafnl.es.iaf.nl with UUCP id AA20996
  (5.67b/IDA-1.5); Thu, 8 Jan 1998 23:44:14 +0100
Received: (from wilko@localhost) by yedi.iaf.nl (8.8.7/8.6.12) id WAA03382; Thu, 8 Jan 1998 22:38:46 +0100 (MET)
From: Wilko Bulte <wilko@yedi.iaf.nl>
Message-Id: <199801082138.WAA03382@yedi.iaf.nl>
Subject: Re: SCSI/Tape problem?
To: steve@news.cioe.com (Steven Ames)
Date: Thu, 8 Jan 1998 22:38:46 +0100 (MET)
Cc: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG, freebsd-scsi@FreeBSD.ORG
In-Reply-To: <199801081805.NAA11593@news.cioe.com> from "Steven Ames" at Jan 8, 98 01:05:29 pm
X-Organisation: Private FreeBSD site - Arnhem, The Netherlands
X-Pgp-Info: PGP public key at 'finger wilko@freefall.freebsd.org'
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24 ME8a]
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG
X-Loop: FreeBSD.org
Precedence: bulk

As Steven Ames wrote...

> I'm encountering a problem that I just can't seem to solve.
> I have a FreeBSD system that I've been using to backup my
> network for quite a while. It is using an Adaptec 2940 card
> and an Exabyte 8205 tape backup. I'm using 'amanda' to do
> the backups onto 160M tapes. Alrighty...
> 
> A while back the system started to lock up during the backup
> process. Also the command 'mt erase' would never terminate.

You might run into some timeout situation. I have an (admittedly
somewhat older) 8200 drive and it takes ages to do an erase.

> I tried a different controller (still an Adaptec 2940). Same
> results. Different cable, no change. Different tape drive
> (Exabyte 8700XL), same results.
> 
> Today I built a 2.1.7-RELEASE machine and tried it there.
> Similar results. The 'mt erase' command generates a lot of
> errors and eventually causes a reboot.
> 
> I need a solution ASAP as I'm not getting backups until 
> things work. I've also tried this on a 3.0-CURRENT (1/7/98)
> machine... same results as the 2.2.5 platform.

Why not omit the 'mt erase' altogether? The drive will erase your
tape anyhow when you start writing to it from BOT.

Wilko
_     ______________________________________________________________________
 |   / o / /  _  Bulte email: wilko @ yedi.iaf.nl http://www.tcja.nl/~wilko
 |/|/ / / /( (_) Arnhem, The Netherlands - Do, or do not. There is no 'try'
---------------  Support your local daemons: run [Free,Net,Open]BSD Unix  --