Hi,

Good idea. I have done this now. Went and downloaded the manual
and there are two DIP switches that are relevant. I quote from
the manual:

-------
Data Compression (switches 1 and 2)

If switch 1 is ON (default), HW data compression is enabled. If
switch 1 is OFF, HW data compression is disabled. 

If dip switch 2 is ON (default), then SCSI commands can be used
to enable or disable HW data compression. To prevent HW data
compression from being enabled or disabled by SCSI commands, set
DIP switch 2 to OFF
-------

That all sounds pretty straight forward. I turned dip switches 1
& 2 OFF so that HW compression is disabled and can't be turned
on again by the software.

I would hope that if I have physically set these switches, that
even putting in a tape that was previously written on with
compression enabled could not over-ride the DIP switch settings.

I have now changed my drive to these settings and removed the
stuff from /etc/stinit.def.

I try to label a tape and it works fine. I then run an amcheck
and still receive the same error:

amcheck-server: strange amanda header: "AMANDA: T"
ERROR: /dev/nst0: not an amanda tape

If I do "dd bs=1k if=/dev/st0 of=stuff" and then look at the
file "stuff" the first line is:
AMANDA: TAPESTART DATE X TAPE daily02fri

followed by a ^L char on the next line and then lots of ^@ chars
(does this matter, or is it just padding ?)

I have also tried running
"amtapetype -c -f /dev/nst0" to effectively erase the tape prior
to amlabel and amcheck, with the same results as above.

I tried amcheck multiple times and again, it appears to be
succesful about 5% or less of the time (took me 22 tries to get
one successful).

suggestions anyone ?



regards,
Tony.


 --- Dana Bourgeois <em-lists AT netgods DOT us> wrote: 
> Or you could check for a DIP switch and force compression off.
>  My Sony DDS4
> drive can start with compression either on or off and can
> either be switched
> under software control or locked in one mode.  I locked
> compression off so I
> don't have this hassle.
> 
> 
> Dana Bourgeois
> 

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