DDS Tape problems

[Alex Zbyslaw]

Jerry McAllister wrote:

>>Windows drivers could easily be doing something clever to compensate for 
>>some known (to Microsoft at least) problem with the specific tape 
>>drive.  Being Windows it wouldn't bother to tell you.
>>    
>>
>
>That is probably true.   I just wish someone could find out what that[those]
>trick[s] is[are] and apply them in FreeBSD - someone who knows more about
>SCSI tape drivers than I.
>  
>
That's not me I'm afraid :-(

Have you found any references to the kind of  problems you've had for 
related OSes like Open/NetBSD or even Linux?  If someone had fixed such 
a problem for another open source OS, then someone could examine the 
source code to see if there are any obvious tricks going on.  I know, 
for example, that the drivers for one of my ethernet cards were patched 
to work better based at least in part on some Linux drivers.

Alternatively, have you ever had the opportunity to test a tape drive 
which failed under FreeBSD under another BSD or Linux?  Or on an 
alternate SCSI controller under FreeBSD?

I would guess that the scsi or hackers lists might be better places to 
find people who might know, but you've probably tried them already.

--Alex