The Ftape-FAQ
v0.2, 07 december 1997
This is a very incomplete attempt to create a FAQ for the Ftape Floppy Tape Device Driver. Any suggestions, remarks ... that could improve this FAQ are welcome indeed. The most recent version of this FAQ can be found at <http://www.correct.nl/~ftape/>
- 3.1 How fast is Ftape ?
- 3.2 When I write to some of my tapes, they seem to spend a lot of time "shoe-shining," or repositioning instead of streaming. Is something wrong with my system?
- 3.3 Do I have to reboot to the DOS world to format tapes?
- 3.4 Is it possibly to format Ditto 2GB tapes with ftape?
- 3.5 Is it possibly to format Ditto Max or Max Pro tapes with ftape?
- 3.6 Ftape detects more bad sectors than DOS on QIC-3020 tapes
- 3.7 Is it ok that I'm not hearing the tape move when I do a fsf or a bsf with mt?
- 3.8 Why does my XYZ backup program complain about "Invalid argument" errors?
- 3.9 I/O errors and FDC - some explanations.
- 3.10 Why do I get "/dev/qft0: No such device" errors?
- 3.11 I get "device busy" when I make multiple backups on a tape using some script.
- 3.12 How do I "..." with tar?
- 3.13 What block-size should I use with tar ?
- 3.14 Where can I find the tar/mt/cpio/dd binaries - sources - manpages?
- 3.15 If I use tapers compression, is it a bad idea to use the compression with zftape, or would it be better to not use tapers compression, and let zftape do it?
- 3.16 How does zftape compression compare to say gzip -9?
- 3.17 I don't trust compression, but hear that the sftape interface is going away. What should I do?
- 3.18 Ftape says "This tape has no 'Linux raw format"
- 3.19 Can I exchange tapes with someone using DOS?
- 3.20 How does `mt eom' work when you've started overwriting a tape in the middle?
- 3.21 When I made backups before using taper, under the 2.0.29 ftape my drive didn't support fsf, under the new zftape it does, why would this be, and what exactly is fsf ?
- 3.22 What exactly is the difference between ftape, and zftape?
- 3.23 What is the difference between a rewinding, and non rewinding drive?
- 3.24 Can someone tell me how to use mt to rewind my TR-3 drive one record using zftape record, so I can verify it?
- 3.25 By non-rewinding, they mean that it doesn't automatically rewind, correct? It doesn't mean that under no circumstances it will rewind, right? I tried using /dev/zqft0, and it instantly rewinds the tape.
- 3.26 What is the difference between what mt considers a record and what it considers a file?
- 3.27 Reusing tapes with zftape without reformatting the tape.
- 3.28 This script implements a simple contents listing for the zftape package using the "MTIOCVOLINFO" ioctl.