Problems with Dell/Seagate tape drive

[Jonathan Belson]

Hiya

I've installed FreeBSD-Stable on a Dell PowerEdge 600SC, and I'm having 
real problems getting the tape drive to work reliably.  It's a Dell 
rebadged ATA Seagate/Certance STT2401A

As I mentioned in a previous e-mail, I get the message 'ast0: FAILURE - 
REZERO timed out' when tar-ing files to it (after the files have been 
written, but before the drive starts to rewind).

That message seems harmless enough, but I also keep getting intermittent 
kernel panics when I try to access it: 'supervisor read, page not present'.

Has anyone else used this particular model of tape drive?  If so, did 
you have any problems with it?  I've tried switching cables and using 
master/slave/cable select, but it hasn't made any difference. 
Unfortunately, I don't have a spare tape drive to try in case it's a 
hardware fault.

Cheers,

--Jon

http://www.witchspace.com