Date: Sun, 4 May 1997 00:42:23 +0200 (MET DST) From: Wolfgang Helbig <helbig@MX.BA-Stuttgart.De> To: chaos@tgci.com Cc: questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Tape device wt0 (was Re: Compiling custom kernal problems) Message-ID: <199705032242.AAA20581@helbig.informatik.ba-stuttgart.de> In-Reply-To: <199705032030.NAA18123@train.tgci.com> from "Riley J. McIntire" at "May 3, 97 01:05:50 pm"
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> I guess I'm going to try a low level format of the disk, or maybe > just put a scsi one in to take care of the problem below-- > > (Thanks to Wolfram Schneider for your comments--your note's on another > machine so I'm not replying to it...) > > But a couple questions (and I'm new to BSD, please!!!): > > I've a Wangtec qic-02 cartrigde tape and lots of tapes and saw that > fbsd supported it so I installed it. Looking in the /dev directory, I didn't see > wt0, although I enabled support for it and it was seen on boot. Device files will not be created automatically by a kernel supporting the corresponding driver -- instead they are either made during installation of FreeBSD or have to be made with the shell script /dev/MAKEDEV. This script provides some documentation about the device files as well. It seems that a block device like wt0 are not supported by this driver. You have to use raw devices like rwt0, rwt0a, rwt0b ... depending on the capacity and density of your tape. There are device nodes like nrwt0 ... . I do not know, when you have to use which. > So, I thought I needed a custom kernal. That failed as below. I > also tried MAKEDEV wt0. No errors, but didn't see the device. Did > see rwt0. Can I write to this? How? Yes, use e. g. tar -cxf /dev/rwt0 / to backup the root partition. You might want to consult the handbook under the heading `storage devices' to learn about backup and recovery. > Problem: I can't compile a new kernal 'cause apparently my disk is > hosed. To fix it, I'd really like to backup my system and then > format the disk. But I can't get the tape to work without a new > kernal (is this true? I have my doubts!). This is not true. The GENERIC kernel has support for QIC 02 Tapes. > Is this Catch 22? <grin> It's not all that serious, but I would What is a Catch 22? > like to backup if possible first, and any help/pointers/comments > would *really* be appreciated! I hope this helps, Wolfgang
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