Problems with CPIO/Archive 150M tape

[Andy Burgess]

In article <3352 at ns-mx.uiowa.edu> isca at icaen.uiowa.edu (Iowa Student Computer Assoc) writes:
>
>Not being that familiar with Sys V, I'd like some help...
>I was trying to help a person today do some backup on his unix box.  The
>config is as follows:
>
>       Intel 386 Computer, etc.
>       Archive V2150S (150 Meg SCSI tape drive)
>       Interactive Unix 2.2
>
>He had been doing backup using D600A tapes left over from an older system.
>Today, cpio suddenly decided to hang part way through the backup.  Now, 
>these really aren't the correct tapes  - (I forget the correct #) but

DC6150 are the 150Mb tapes.

>they seemed to work - apparently until they get to the end of the tape.
>My question is: should cpio give an error when it gets to the end of the
>tape, or is there a way to tell the drive that it has a 60M tape instead?
>

DC 600A tape hold about 120Mb using an Archive 2150S. You may need to tell
your cpio that the tapes are 120Mb not 150Mb tapes. I don't believe that the
drive can tell the difference between 600A and 6250.

Then again, I may be off base. You didn't say exactly what the error was.

Andy

-- 
Andy Burgess
Independent Consultant
aab at cichlid.com
uunet!silma!cichlid!aab