[CLUE-Tech] Re: Can I use HP Colorado 5GB ATAPI tape hardware with

[jimintriglia at americanisp.net]

Hi Guys,

I had both my Yamaha CD-Writer and HP/Colorado Travan Tape drives working fine
via RH V6.2. When I upgraded to RH V7.0, the precompiled default kernel was nfg,
as neither the CD-ROM writer (I/O error on fixating) or the Travan tape drive
(I/O error as you described) worked anymore, which sucked.

Match suggested a kernel recompile selecting low-level SCSI driver (which has
worked in the past with my cranky NCR 53C8xx SCSI interface) via the kernel make
xconfig process. Pleasantly surprised to see an new NCR 53C8xx SCSI driver
option, rather than the default 'generic', but alas, the newly compiled kernel
with low-level drives did not change the errors experience with the CD-RW and
Tape drives. Tried probably 250 combinations of options - nada - DOA.

To use my CD-R/W these days, I actually have to boot to an alternate RHV6.2
kernel (2.2.17), as I tried every bloody combination of kernel configuration
option to get a 2.2.19 kernel to work with both my CD writer and tape drives. No
luck.

I'm hoping that an upgrade to RH V7.2 would perhaps work (2.4 kernel and some
more device drivers on-board), or maybe a kernel recompile as previously
described would yield success this time around. 

I've not had the time of late to actually do some detailed review of error
messages/logs to see what's causing the problem, but it seems to be affecting
more than just my system. Checked everys resource I know a few months back, but
found reports of this problem with no resolution posted.

JimI.
> 
> I tried installing Roswell (Redhat 7.2 beta) as suggested by the
> maintainer of the Hardware HOWTO (nice guy!) but I still have the same
> troubles:  Manipulating and writing to the tape works fine, but reading
> back what was written to the tape always fails with something like:
> 
>   tar: /dev/nht0: Cannot read: Input/output error
>   tar: At beginning of tape, quitting now
>   tar: Error is not recoverable: exiting now
> 
> and a kernel syslog message:
> 
>   kernel: ide-tape: ht0: I/O error, pc =  8, key =  5, asc = 2c, ascq =  0
> 
> I haven't tried downgrading to RedHat 6.2 or something else that uses a
> 2.2.x kernel; from what I've learned, that's what I'll have to do, since
> the ide-tape kernel module seems not to work in 2.4.x kernels.  Jeff, do
> you have your HP Colorado 5GB tape drive working with a 2.4.x kernel?
> 
> - Carl
> 
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Jim Intriglia
IT Systems and Software Developer
www.JimIntriglia.com