Tape Drive Test V3.0

[Anonymous]

Trying to test a Seagate STT3401A IDE in XP. The configuration will allow a query of both the drive and media, and the retreived info is correct. Windows backup will backup a test file ok as will the tapeware provided with the drive. (tapeware runs as a service and I have tried this with and without the service running). The drivers for the tape drive are provided by seagate and is named stidexp.sys version 5.1.seagate.1.1 built by WINDDK.

I consistently get the error: Could not set tape drive parameters

Since the software is able to correctly query the device and return the standard block size of 512 I don't think this is the issue.

The error log file shows two entries :The one mentioned above and "Tape drive, Ops:0, Error Code:1

Would really like to get this burned in properly.

Thanx

[David (PassMark)]

As you have noted, the software is definitely communicating with the drive.

As part of the test setup the drive parameters are read from the drive then written back to the drive.

The drive parameters in question are,
==========
ECC
Specifies whether the device supports hardware error correction. This member is TRUE if hardware error correction is supported.

Compression
Specifies whether hardware data compression is enabled or disabled. This member is TRUE if hardware data compression is enabled.

DataPadding
Specifies whether data padding is enabled or disabled. Data padding keeps the tape streaming at a constant speed. This member is TRUE if data padding is enabled.

ReportSetmarks
Specifies whether setmark reporting is enabled or disabled. This member is TRUE if setmarks are enabled.

EOTWarningZoneSize
Specifies the number of bytes between the end-of-tape warning and the physical end of the tape.
==========

These parameters are read from the drive but the attempt to write the same values back into the drive fails with the error code (1), invalid function.

The setting of these parameters back into the drive is not really a necessary step to use the drive but we did it for completeness of the test. (Some applications might want to change one or more of these values).

Not being able to set the paramater causes the test to fail.

We don't have an explaination as to why your tape drive (or tape device driver) doesn't want to accept these settings.

If you E-mail me ( davidw at passmark dot com ) a screen shot of the "Drive Info" window then I can E-mail a question to Seagate.

One more thing, there were similar problem reported by a couple of people on the Net, when they had SQL installed. Do you have SQL installed by any chance ?

====
David
PassMark