8mm drive/dump/Ultrix

[George Robbins]

In article <66343 at bu.edu.bu.edu> oneill at bass.bu.edu (Brian V O'Neill) writes:
> I am having a problem using an 8mm drive hooked up to a VAXserver 3600
> running Ultrix 3.1. The drive was purchased from Digital with I believe a
> Largo controller, but the documentation was gone before I started.
> 
> The problem is that I cannot perform file skips of dump-format files. It
> works fine with tar files, but I want to place multiple dumps onto a single
> tape. Any time I attempt to use 'mt fsf', I get an I/O error right about
> when it should have reached the end. Any ideas around this problem?

This kind of problem is/was frequent with 8mm tape drives.  Check with the
controller vendor and make sure they claim to support file skipping and that
the controller / drive firmware is at the current revision level.

-- 
George Robbins - now working for,     uucp:   {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!grr
but no way officially representing:   domain: grr at cbmvax.commodore.com
Commodore, Engineering Department     phone:  215-431-9349 (only by moonlite)