I, like Perderabo, have not seen anything like /dev/rmt0 before - I just figured it was a typo.

Since the mt command worked, try the tar command - just change it to /dev/rmt0 instead of /dev/rmt/0.

Then to see if it truely worked

$ tar tvf /dev/rmt0

That should give you a listing of what is on the tape. Always check the commands given versus what AIX may have especially since we have seen the one difference in how AIX vs others looks at tape drives.

here is the command from aix doc

For example, to list the files that have been saved onto a diskette with the cpio command, type:


cpio -itv </dev/rfd0

Im assuming that i can replace the word diskette with tape and
/dev/rfd0 with /dev/rmt0

when I run this i get

Cannot read from device

maybe i cant replace rfd0 with rmt0.......

But you don't have a tape that was written by an earlier run of cpio. Try to write a tape, not read one.

You will need to put a tape in the drive and make sure that it is writable. For 8mm, there is a little tab that you slide open to make the tape writable.

And tar is much more simple than cpio. Try that tar command RTM gave you. Once you have that working you can move on to cpio if you really must.

When I run tar tvf /dev/rmt0, it just hangs there.....

Maybe the tape isnt rewound, I can actually get to the server, its in a remote location....

Is there a way to rewind the tape from the command line?

it came out of the hang with this

tar tvf /dev/rmt0
tar: 0511-193 An error occurred while reading from the media.
There is an input or output error.

You should have someone at the remote site verify the tape is still in the drive.

Also you can use
$ mt -f /dev/rmt0 rewind
to rewind the tape (check your documentation to see if this is valid with AIX mt command)

ok, so i had the guy in my team who is onsite at the data center pop in a new tape




Per your request I tried popping in other tape.

Here is what I got:

When I tried putting in other tape I got "clean drive" msg.
So I cleaned drive.
Put back in orig tape thinking that's all it was.
Tried to do simple copy and got "Cannot write to Device:"
So went back up and tried other tape .. got "clean drive" msg again
Cleaned drive again.
Put in other tape.
Tried doing simple copy and got same msg .. ie Cannot write .. etc

Ran cmd below and figured drive ok .. but not sure ..

You guys have any ideas/suggestions?
thx


# tctl -f /dev/rmt0 status
rmt0 Available 40-60-00-0,0 SCSI 8mm Tape Drive
attribute value description user_settable

mode yes Use DEVICE BUFFERS during writes True
block_size 1024 BLOCK size (0=variable length) True
extfm no Use EXTENDED file marks True
ret no RETENSION on tape change or reset True
density_set_1 39 DENSITY setting #1 True
density_set_2 39 DENSITY setting #2 True
compress yes Use data COMPRESSION True
size_in_mb 20000 Size in Megabytes False
ret_error no RETURN error on tape change or reset True
#




Our only other theory is maybe the density of the tape is incorect? any other ideas?