[ale] Odd SCSI tape problem

[Dan Newcombe]

I have found a way to lock up my Linux system.  I have a tape drive on 
it.  I think it's a wangtek 3555 or something like that - a SCSI tape 
drive.  Anyway, it seems to work okay if I mt erase a 600A tape, and 
then tar stuff onto it, but if I put a 600 tape or another (longer) 
tape in it and try to do a tar on it, the whole system seems to die.  

Actually, it's more like it won't spawn any new processes.  I can still 
ping it, I can telnet to it (which gets connected, but never gives a 
login prompt).  There are no panics, no messages in the logs.

Any ideas?  It's not really a problem, as the 600A tapes seem to work, 
it just strikes me as odd that something like that could kill the 
system so easy.

Have a good holiday!  See some of you at the computer show this weekend 
probably.
   -Dan

--
Dan Newcombe (newcombe at aa.clayton.edu) http://www.csc.peachnet.edu/home/dan/
- I never did write that love song, the words just never seemed to flow.
                       (Marillion, Script for a Jester's Tear)