Date: Fri, 19 Feb 1999 18:40:21 -0600 From: David Kelly <dkelly@hiwaay.net> To: Jon Drukman <jsd@gamespot.com> Cc: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: tape drive position Message-ID: <199902200040.SAA81105@nospam.hiwaay.net> In-Reply-To: Message from Jon Drukman <jsd@gamespot.com> of "Fri, 19 Feb 1999 20:31:41 GMT." <36CDCA2D.345FE0FC@gamespot.com>
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Jon Drukman writes: > is there a way to find out what position the tape in a scsi tape drive > is at? when i used to use an exabyte drive on IRIX, mt status would > tell me if the tape was rewound, or what fileno/blockno the tape was > positioned at. > > mt status on freebsd with a HP Colorado T4000 drive just gives: > > Present Mode: Density = 0x45 Blocksize = 512 bytes > ---------available modes--------- > Mode 0: Density = 0x00 Blocksize variable > Mode 1: Density = X3.136-1986 Blocksize = 512 bytes > Mode 2: Density = X3.39-1986 Blocksize variable > Mode 3: Density = X3.54-1986 Blocksize variable My 3.0-stable machine (Feb 8 snap) at work reports file# and block# on Seagate DDS-3 tape drives. But right now I'm setting at an older 3.0 which doesn't report the position information. I too used Irix a lot, and *really* like most of the reporting information one can get out of Irix's mt(1). The thing missing from the FreeBSD "mt status" now is Irix's verbosity as to whether or not you are at BOT, EOD, or if you are positioned at a FMK. One thing I'd like somebody to tell me The Right Way To Do, is how to determine if a tape is written in a hardware-compression mode? If I have a DDS-DC tape drive and attempt to read a compressed tape it figures that I must know what I'm doing and slips into compressed mode. Or vice versa. The only way I know to ID a compressed tape is to put it in a DDS drive which doesn't support compression and see what happens. Same for Irix and FreeBSD. -- David Kelly N4HHE, dkelly@nospam.hiwaay.net ===================================================================== The human mind ordinarily operates at only ten percent of its capacity -- the rest is overhead for the operating system. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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