Problem with SCSI tape drive on RedHat 7.1

[Edwin Fung <nnehf geoffreyf gsfc nasa gov>]

Hi, 

We have a 1.6 GHz Pentium with an Adaptec 2930 SCSI card, and we connect
it to an external Sony SDT 9000 4-mm tape drive. We have no problems with
doing "tar" or "dump" when we were running Red Hat
7.0, but when we upgrade to Red Hat 7.1, we keep getting errors. Red Hat
7.1 does recognize the tape drive, and when we use "tar" to
copy files to the tape it actually does some of the files in the
beginning, but before too long (within 15 secs) "tar" will
quit. The following is a sample of the "tar" failures: 

# mt -f /dev/nst0 setblk 1024 
# tar -l -cvf /dev/nst0 ./var 
./var/ 
./var/lib/ 
./var/lib/rpm/ 
./var/lib/rpm/Packages 
./var/lib/rpm/Name 
./var/lib/rpm/Basenames 
./var/lib/rpm/Group 
./var/lib/rpm/Requirename 
./var/lib/rpm/Providename 
tar: /dev/nst0: Wrote only 0 of 10240 bytes 
tar: Error is not recoverable: exiting now 
# mt -f /dev/nst0 rewind 
# tar -tvf /dev/nst0 
drwxr-xr-x root/root 0 2002-05-31 19:58:52 ./var/ 
drwxr-xr-x root/root 0 2002-05-31 18:25:00 ./var/lib/ 
drwxr-xr-x root/root 0 1996-02-14 17:07:19 ./var/lib/rpm/ 
-rw-r--r-- root/root 12255232 2002-05-31 19:57:13 ./var/lib/rpm/Packages
tar: /dev/nst0: Cannot read: Input/output error 
tar: Error exit delayed from previous errors 

From /var/log/messages, we got these: 

Jun 3 14:08:03 ewxterm kernel: st0: Block limits 1 - 16777215
bytes. 
Jun 3 14:08:42 ewxterm kernel: st0: Error with sense data: [valid=0] Info
fld=0x0, Current st09:00:
sense key Illegal Request 
Jun 3 14:08:42 ewxterm kernel: Additional sense indicates Invalid command
operation code 
Jun 3 14:08:46 ewxterm kernel: (scsi0:0:6:0) Data Overrun during
SEND_SENSE operation. 
Jun 3 14:08:52 ewxterm kernel: (scsi0:0:6:0) CHECK_CONDITION on
REQUEST_SENSE, returning an error. 
Jun 3 14:08:52 ewxterm kernel: st0: Error 27070002 (sugg. bt 0x20, driver
bt 0x7, host bt 0x7). 
Jun 3 14:24:03 ewxterm kernel: scsi : aborting command due to timeout :
pid 0, scsi0, channel 0, id 6,
lun 0 Read (6) 01 00 00 20 00 
Jun 3 14:24:05 ewxterm kernel: SCSI host 0 abort (pid 0) timed out -
resetting 
Jun 3 14:24:05 ewxterm kernel: SCSI bus is being reset for host 0 channel
0. 
Jun 3 14:24:05 ewxterm kernel: (scsi0:0:6:0) Synchronous at 10.0
Mbyte/sec, offset 15. 
Jun 3 14:24:05 ewxterm kernel: (scsi0:0:6:0) CHECK_CONDITION on
REQUEST_SENSE, returning an error. 
Jun 3 14:24:05 ewxterm kernel: st0: Error 27070002 (sugg. bt 0x20, driver
bt 0x7, host bt 0x7). 
 
 
As I mentioned, the tape drive works fine with Red Hat 7.0, but
not Red Hat 7.1. Any
suggestions/explanations will be much appreciated. 

Edwin H. Fung 
Code 584 
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center 
Greenbelt, MD 20771 
E-mail: edwin fung gsfc nasa gov