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Date:      Fri, 17 May 2013 10:22:03 +0100
From:      Bob Bishop <rb@gid.co.uk>
To:        Zaphod Beeblebrox <zbeeble@gmail.com>
Cc:        Greg 'groggy' Lehey <grog@FreeBSD.org>, FreeBSD Hackers <freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.org>
Subject:   Re: tape (sa0) on sparc64 ?
Message-ID:  <BC94D229-FD03-4DB9-B3E2-CB50CA78A269@gid.co.uk>
In-Reply-To: <20130517003058.GW77641@eureka.lemis.com>
References:  <CACpH0Mcass3ONxhFw5mRrQ1K931gxaxBZgo45_%2BynLrrbm4DUw@mail.gmail.com> <0D672BB1-1928-4F7A-BF72-CA7EE15D0563@gid.co.uk> <CACpH0McOx_Kza-Ou-=ko724cehF0Kp3uhN%2B6mFy2L0GdLQ1ESg@mail.gmail.com> <20130517003058.GW77641@eureka.lemis.com>

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Hi,

On 17 May 2013, at 01:30, Greg 'groggy' Lehey wrote:
> On Thursday, 16 May 2013 at 19:56:14 -0400, Zaphod Beeblebrox wrote:
>> On Thu, May 16, 2013 at 5:08 PM, Bob Bishop <rb@gid.co.uk> wrote:
>>> On 16 May 2013, at 21:51, Zaphod Beeblebrox wrote:
>>>=20
>>>> I have to retrieve some very old backups.  They were made on =
FreeBSD and
>>>> are on tape... specifically DDS4.  [etc]
>>>> However, attached to either controller (after a reboot of the =
machine
>>> and a
>>>> powercycle of the drive), I get:
>>>>=20
>>>> [1:25:325]root@run:/home/foo> dd if=3D/dev/sa0  of=3Dtape5
>>>> dd: /dev/sa0: Input/output error
>>>> 0+0 records in
>>>> 0+0 records out
>>>> 0 bytes transferred in 0.002930 secs (0 bytes/sec)
>>>>=20
>>>> ... which is a return code of '1' and no messages on the console...
>>>>=20
>>>> I have, before you ask, tried "bs=3D10k" and 20k ... but I believe =
this
>>>> command should run by itself fetching the first 512 bytes of each =
block
>>> ---
>>>> narrowing down the block size logically comes after making the tape =
go.
>>>=20
>>>=20
>>> Try bs=3D64k
>>=20
>> Same result.  Besides, as far as I understand, the proper operation
>> (if the blocksize is too small) is to read the first $n bytes and
>> then write them to the output..

My (dim) memory says the drive won't read at all if you get the =
blocksize wrong, so may be worth trying other sizes...

> The obvious question: can you write tapes and read them back?

...but certainly try that.

> My
> experience with DDS tapes was of extreme unreliability.  The age
> doesn't make things any easier.

There's a lot to go wrong with settings etc. See for instance: =
http://fixunix.com/setup/398541-dds-4-tape-drive-compatiblity.html

> Greg
> --
> Sent from my desktop computer.
> Finger grog@FreeBSD.org for PGP public key.
> See complete headers for address and phone numbers.
> This message is digitally signed.  If your Microsoft MUA reports
> problems, please read http://tinyurl.com/broken-mua

--
Bob Bishop
rb@gid.co.uk







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