DAT drives

[Mike Maltese]

> Okay, probably a dumb question but I can't readily find an answer
> in the archives..
>
> I just picked up a (used) surestore C1533A (thats an HP device) and am
> having some problems getting it work quite right. I've got the dip
switches
> set correctly (I was able to find at least 3 corroborating pages for that)
> but can't manage to get it to write correctly. It will only write about
> 50 megs using 0a as dump flags. Trying to specify -B and estimating
> compression got me to about 200 but it's a 4 gig drive. All it wants to
> do is write a few blocks, sit and sputter for a second or two, write a few
> more, (repeat for about 15 minutes) and then tell me it's at EOM well
before
> it should be.
>
> There are notes in the hardware compatability section that says this
> drive has been made to work onder FreeBSD so I know at least that it's
> not simply an unsupported device.
>
> Any suggestions from the folks in the audience?

This is a DDS2 SCSI drive, correct? I have a C1553A in an autoloader and it
works flawlessly.

I would check the following:

1. Since you're getting EOM, check that the tape is, in fact, rewound.

2. Try a new tape.

3. Run a cleaning tape.

4. Ensure that the SCSI bus is correctly configured and terminated.