[ale] SCSI tape

[Stephan Uphoff]

Erasing a tape takes some time - the process issues a SCSI command and
just waits until the drive is done.

There is a compile option in the driver to send a SCSI command where
the tape drive returns status as soon as it starts the operation.
( It does not wait for the erase to complete 0> "mt erase"
 returns immediately)
It will still take forever to erase the tape.
(Next mt commands will probably fail with BUSY status)

What is the problem ?

Is your forever really a forever and the tape does not get erased ?
Erasing should not take longer than writing a whole tape.

	Stephan

> I've a SCSI tape drive running on a RedHat 6.0 system.  It works OK, but
> I do have one problem.  When I use "mt erase", it "runs forever".  I can't
> even kill the process with a "kill -9".
> 
> ideas?
>