troubles with IDE tape

[Martin F Krafft <madduck@madduck.net>]

hi,
i am experiencing troubles with an IDE tape, hooked up as secondary
slave to an otherwise perfectly working machine.

i created the device nodes for /dev/ht0 with `mknod /dev/hd0 c 37 0`
but when i use 'mt' to display the status of the drive (or to rewind,
or to erase, or to whatever), i get logs like the folloowing:

kernel: ide-tape: Reached idetape_chrdev_open
kernel: ide-tape: Reached idetape_read_position
kernel: ide-tape: ht0: I/O error, pc = 10, key =  7, asc = 27, ascq =  0
kernel: ide-tape: Reached idetape_read_position_callback
kernel: ide-tape: Reached idetape_read_position
kernel: ide-tape: ht0: I/O error, pc = 10, key =  7, asc = 27, ascq =  0
kernel: ide-tape: Reached idetape_read_position_callback
kernel: ide-tape: ht0: I/O error, pc = 10, key =  7, asc = 27, ascq =  0
kernel: ide-tape: Reached idetape_read_position_callback

i get the same errors when i do something trivial like
`tar cf /dev/ht0 /boot`, which outputs

tar: /dev/tape: Wrote only 0 of 10240 bytes
tar: Error is not recoverable: exiting now

i am pretty sure that the drive is working, it plays around with the
tape when you insert it, and it's correctly identified by the linux
kernel (2.4.9). any clues how i should go from here?

martin;              (greetings from the heart of the sun.)
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