ftape
ftape
is a driver program that controls various low-cost tape
drives that connect to the floppy controller. Specifically, ftape
supports drives that conform to the QIC-117 and QIC-80/QIC-40 standards.
ftape
does not support QIC-02 tape drives or drives that
connect via a SCSI interface, e.g. a DAT drive. SCSI drives are accessed
as /dev/st[0-7]
and are supported by the kernel directly. See
section
Supported drives
and
Un-supported drives
for a list of supported and
unsupported drives.
ftape
? ftape
is written more or less from scratch by Bas Laarhoven
<bas@vimec.nl>
, with a little help from his friends to
sort out the ECC (Error Correcting Code) stuff. If you like
ftape
please send a mail to Bas saying so. (At the last
headcount, only five - five! - users bothered to send Bas a mail saying that
they were using ftape
).
ftape
- and where to get it The newest version of the ftape
driver is ftape-1.13b
,
and can be fetched from the following sites:
tsx-11.mit.edu [18.172.1.2]: /pub/linux/ALPHA/QIC-80/
sunsite.unc.edu [152.2.22.81]: /pub/Linux/kernel/tapes/
ftp.funet.fi [128.214.248.6]: /pub/OS/Linux/BETA/QIC-80/
You should get the files: ftape-1.13b.tar.gz
,
ftape-1.13b.lsm
and modules.tar.gz
. The .tar.gz
file is the ftape
driver proper, while the .lsm
file is a
Linux Software Map (LSM) file for the LSM project, and the modules
file is a set of utilities for manipulating loadable drivers (insertion and
removal). Note: if you have an old version of the modules utilities, e.g.
modutils-0.99.14.tar.gz
or modutils-0.99.15.tar.gz
, you
will probably need to upgrade them).
ftape
driver If you want to follow the development of the ftape
driver, you should
consider subscribing to the TAPE channel on Linux-activists. To subscribe,
you send a mail to <linux-activists-request@niksula.hut.fi>
,
with the first line (or as a part of the header) saying
`X-Mn-Admin: join tape
'. If you send an empty mail (or the
automagical mail-response system chokes on your mail), you are sent a HOWTO
mail.
To submit a real mail to the mailing lists, send a mail to
<linux-activists@niksula.hut.fi>
, and remember that the first
line (or a header line) should read `X-Mn-Key: TAPE
'.
ftape
driver Supported drivesAll drives that are both QIC-117 compatible and either QIC-40 or
QIC-80 compatible should work. Currently, the list of drives that are known
to work with ftape
is:
Support for the FC-10 controller has been merged into the ftape
driver in version 1.12. See the RELEASE-NOTES
and the
Makefile
files in the ftape
distribution.
Some tape drives (Iomega) falsely set the `new-cartridge-loaded
'
status every time the driver is fopen()
ed. These drives won't
work together with file-marks as ftape
will incorrectly think that
it got a new tape, which needs to be rewound. Effectively, all files end
up at the beginning of the tape (sigh).
If you have a Tallgrass FS300 and an AHA1542B, you need to increase the
bus-on / bus-off time of the 1542B. Antti Virjo (klanvi@uti.fi
),
says that changing CMD_BUSON_TIME
to 4 and CMD_BUSOFF_CMD
to 12 in linux/drivers/scsi/aha1542.c
will do the trick.
NOTE: If you have a drive that works fine, but it is not listed here, please
send a mail to the HOWTO maintainer (khp@login.dknet.dk
).
ftape
driver Un-supported drives
Generally, ALL drives that connect to the parallel port are NOT supported. This is because these drives uses (different) proprietary interfaces, that are very much different from the QIC-117 standard.
The Colorado TC-15 controller (and it's like) are not supported directly by
the ftape
driver. The only `special' controller that can be used with
ftape
is the Colorado FC-10. Support for the FC-10 was integrated
in version 1.12.
The Irwin AX250L (and the IBM Internal Tape Backup Unit) does not work the
ftape
. This is because they only support QIC-117, but not the
QIC-80 standard (they use Irwin's proprietary servoe (Rhomat) format). I
know nothing about the Rhomat format, nor where to get any info on
it. Sorry.
The COREtape light does not work (yet). We have some info on it, but we
have not got it to accept the initialisation data. As the user who had the
COREtape drive swapped it for another tape drive in frustration, we may
never get it to work with ftape
(no test drive).
ftape
If you have a floppy controller which has a female DB37 connector on the
bracket and some means of delivering power to the tape drive, you can use it
with ftape
. OK, that sentence was not very obvious. Let's try it
this way: Some FDC's (the very ancient one's), have a DB37 connector on the
bracket, for connecting to external floppy drives. If you make a suitable
cable (from a quick glance on an FDC that I've got lying around, it seems to
be almost a straight 1-to-1 cable. However, ymmv) from the DB37 connector (on
the FDC) and to your external tape drive, you can get ftape
to
control your tape drive. This is because that from a program's view there is
no difference between the internal and the external connectors. So, from
ftape
's point of view, they are identical.
ftape
driver There is included an installation guide (the file Install-guide
)
in the ftape
distribution; please read that.
You can get the kernel sources from the same place as you got the
ftape
sources. The sources are kept at the following sites (and
many mirror-sites)
tsx-11.mit.edu [18.172.1.2]: /pub/linux/sources/system/
sunsite.unc.edu [152.2.22.81]: /pub/Linux/kernel/
ftp.funet.fi [128.214.248.6]: /pub/OS/Linux/PEOPLE/Linus
You will find a number of subdirectories, including two named v1.0
and v1.1
. These contain (you guessed it!) v1.0
and
v1.1
of the kernel. I suggest that you get version 1.1.
<something>
.
At the moment, no! We have looked at how to do it under Linux, but don't
hang around waiting for it. Until it's finished, you'll have to use
MessyDOS (arghhh!) instead or buy preformatted tapes. However, some of
the preformatted tapes are not checked for bad sectors!. If the
ftape
driver encounters a tape with no bad blocks, it will issue a
warning.
These are known to work:
tape.exe
)These programs are known to be more or less buggy:
In fact, most software under DOS should work. The Conner Backup Basics
v1.0 has a parameter off-by-one (someone could not read the QIC-80 specs
right!), which is corrected in version 1.1. Dennis T. Flaherty
(dennisf@denix.elk.miles.com
) report that Conner C250MQ owners can
obtain the new v1.1, by calling 1-800-230-5638 (in the US) and ask for an
upgrade (for a nominal fee for the floppy). The Windows versions should
work fine.
Central Point Backup can be used, but it wastes precious tape space when it encounters a bad spot on the tape.
NOTE: If you are running a formatting software under DOS, which is not
mentioned here, please mail the maintainer (khp@login.dknet.dk
) the
relevant info, so I can update the HOWTO.
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