HP C1533A DDS2 tape drive

[jpg <jpg@hpcvsjpg.cv.hp.com>]

Has anyone ever got an HP c1533a to work with tar/cpio/mt on Debian etch?

All attempts have failed with:

tar: /dev/nst1: Warning: Cannot close: Input/output error
cpio: error closing archive: Input/output error
mt: error closing archive: Input/output error

and worse, like eating tapes and tape drives. Have tried 3 different
known good HP C1533A tape drives, 2 different cables and numerous tapes.

Actually have trashed a few tapes and 1 tape drive. Tape drives
go through numerous repositionings, rewinds. cpio is the worst of the
lot, as it actually kills the tape drive, whereas tar and mt just
wrap tape around the capstan.

Have done numerous cleanings, so that's not it. Also these tapes and
tape drives were taken from running HP-UX servers where they performed
flawlessly.

There must be a module specific to DDS tapes that I am missing to keep
tape tension set or disable reposition after every bit written or 
something like that. 

Details:
Kernel: 2.6.17.1
Dist:  4.0 (etch)

.config
========================================================================
#
# SCSI device support
#
CONFIG_RAID_ATTRS=y
CONFIG_SCSI=y
CONFIG_SCSI_PROC_FS=y

#
# SCSI support type (disk, tape, CD-ROM)
#
CONFIG_BLK_DEV_SD=y
CONFIG_CHR_DEV_ST=y
CONFIG_CHR_DEV_OSST=y
CONFIG_CHR_DEV_SG=y
CONFIG_CHR_DEV_SCH=y

#
# Some SCSI devices (e.g. CD jukebox) support multiple LUNs
#
CONFIG_SCSI_MULTI_LUN=y
CONFIG_SCSI_CONSTANTS=y

#
# SCSI low-level drivers
#
CONFIG_ISCSI_TCP=y
CONFIG_SCSI_AIC7XXX=y
CONFIG_AIC7XXX_CMDS_PER_DEVICE=32
CONFIG_AIC7XXX_RESET_DELAY_MS=15000
CONFIG_AIC7XXX_DEBUG_MASK=0
CONFIG_SCSI_ADVANSYS=y
CONFIG_MEGARAID_SAS=y

========================================================================

So has anyone ever crossed this bridge before?

-jpg