R: Question about changing Tape Drive

define tapetype olddrive {
    comment "just produced by tapetype prog (hardware compression on)"
    length 1604 mbytes
    filemark 0 kbytes
    speed 393 kps
}

define tapetype newdrive {
    comment "just produced by tapetype prog (hardware compression off)"
    length 1949 mbytes
    filemark 267 kbytes
    speed 166 kps
} 

As you can see, the drive is similar, but not identical. So the question is: if 
i set blocksize (blocksize = filemark?) to 0, i am able to read the tape? or i 
have lost my backups?

thanks for help.

Giovanni

-----Messaggio originale-----
Da: Paul Bijnens [mailto:paul.bijnens AT xplanation DOT com]
Inviato: venerdì 30 settembre 2005 10.34
A: Montagni, Giovanni
Cc: amanda-users AT amanda DOT org
Oggetto: Re: Question about changing Tape Drive


Montagni, Giovanni wrote:
> I have changed our tape drive, because it started to fail to write on tape.
> I have changed it with the same model.
> 
> After sostitution, amanda cannot recognise the tape, every day it give me 
> error like "Not an amanda tape", and i have to amrmtape then amlabel the tape 
> again.
> 
> Is it possible to solve this problem?

First, can you read the tape with "dd"?
Try to read the label:

   dd if=/dev/st0 bs=32k count=1

Is the label you see correct?

A frequent problem is blocksize difference.

I work in variable blocksize.
On linux:
  mt -t /dev/st0 defblksize 0   # add this in /etc/rc.*/* somewhere
  mt -t /dev/st0 setblk 0       # or this just before handling tape

If your tapes were written with a fixed blocksize, you should
use that value again (or relabel the tapes, and switch to variable
blocksize).



-- 
Paul Bijnens, Xplanation                            Tel  +32 16 397.511
Technologielaan 21 bus 2, B-3001 Leuven, BELGIUM    Fax  +32 16 397.512
http://www.xplanation.com/          email:  Paul.Bijnens AT xplanation DOT com
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