[KLUG Members] Server Problem (long)

[Adam Williams]

>> When I issue the command "mt -f /dev/st0 status" (or any mt command) I
>I found using the -t option worked better for my ide based tape drive.
>Give it a shot. I can't find documentation to support this and the man page
>ia VERY vauge about it (it mentions -f and -t doesn't explain them), but I'm
>almost willing to bet a paycheck that -f means Floppy type interface and -t
>means "normal"? I was having the problem of typing mt -f /dev/ht0 erase and
>having it literally wipping out tapes until I did a valid backup with them
>on a Windows based system to "restore" the tape. When I tried the -t option


 -f means file just like in tar,  and is "standard" UNIX, AIX, etc...  
HP-UX and various other UNIX derivatives use -t to mean "tape".  They 
*should* be equal in meaning.

HOWEVER,  some older versions of mt-st (the package containing mt) had 
problems parsing arguments if the "-f" option was used,  but where fine 
with "-t".  This was a bug in ***mt*** and had nothing to do with the 
driver.

Also,  if the drive works under NT, but not Linux,  NT may be "setting up" 
the drive,  whereas Linux leaves that to the admin. If the drive needs 
block size settings, etc...,  look at "man stinit"

-- 
-----------------------------------------------------------
Ximian GNOME, Evolution, LTSP, and RedHat Linux + LVM & XFS
-----------------------------------------------------------