Sun-1 Tape Drive Problems

From: Karl Maftoum <karlm_at_blitzen.canberra.edu.au>
Date: Sat Jul 25 20:51:03 1998

> I believe that's an old Archive Sidewinder, isn't it? The drive +
> controller are about the size of an 8" floppy drive. I have one on my
> PERQ, and I've got a maintenance manual...

It's definately an Archive Corp drive, not sure what model (Havn't pulled
it out to check -- the whole machine is in a PDP11/04 Rack :) )

> Assuming the error codes are what the drive reports in bytes 0 and 1 of
> the Read Status command, then they don't make much sense. The bits are
> defined as :
>
> So. 96A0 = Write protect error, Unrecoverable data error, Data
> transmitted was not block in error, Couldn't find data

That COULD be correct, write protect error, I have the write protect on
for the tapes, Unrecoverable data error etc is saying "Help, I can't read
this tape"

> 90C8 = Write protect error, Illegal Command, Beginning of tape.

That is also possible, as again write protect, BOT this is after it has
retensed the tape and found the BOT marker ..

> Alas the Read Status data is produced by the firmware on the tape
> controller board, and I don't know much about it.

What i'm really worried about is it could be a Multibus problem, I've got
the framebuffers out of the Multibus so I can use a serial console, but
I've read somewhere that removing the mono-framebuffer un-terminates the
multibus. I've got jumper J701 jumpered to allow 3 for the Tapemaster
drive (As per the Sun Hardware FAQ) without it jumpered it just gets
endless "Protection Bus Errors".

Also, I'm not sure if the drive is cactus or if it's the tapes, the drive
gives those errors no matter what tape I put in the drive, so I'm
suspecting it's a drive problem, i'd like to pull the whole damn thing
apart and fix/realign it, how difficult is this?

Cheers
Karl

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Karl Maftoum
Computer Engineering student at the University of Canberra, Australia

Email: k.maftoum_at_student.canberra.edu.au
Received on Sat Jul 25 1998 - 20:51:03 BST