troubleshooting tape

On Sat, 8 Nov 2003, Jason Santos wrote:

> On Sat, 2003-11-08 at 17:55, Bryce C wrote:
>
> The correct way to backup /home to a tape device using tar would be:
>
> tar cvf /dev/ht0 /home
>
> or
>
> tar cf /dev/ht0 /home
>

Damn, do I feel dumb! I even looked it up in "Running Linux" because I
hadn't done it in awhile and proceeded to type it backwards. *However*,
the result is the same:

[root@localhost /]# tar cvf /home /dev/ht0
tar: /home: Cannot open: Is a directory

>
> If you want to check the status of the tape drive:
> mt -f /dev/ht0 status
>

[root@localhost holtzm]# mt -f /dev/ht0 status
SCSI 2 tape drive:
File number=0, block number=0, partition=0.
Tape block size 22790 bytes. Density code 0x0 (default).
Soft error count since last status=0
General status bits on (0):

The only problem is I don't know what this is telling me. Can you decipher
this?

Thanks for the reply. Thanks also to Bryce C <Plug@BryceCo.Net> who climbed
on me for the same thing.

-- 
Bob Holtzman
"Your email is being read by hundreds of uptight agents
who never saw the humor in Dr. Strangelove."
                                           Mark Russell