Tape drive on Yellowdog 2.2

[yellowdog-general@lists.terrasoftsolutions.com]

I'm attempting to connect an external tape drive to
a YellowDog 2.2 system.  I've recompiled the kernal
to include support for the SCSI card. The system
appears to detect the drive but when I attempt to
write to the drive or just fast forward it I get an
I/O error. After the I/O error the drive gets taken
offline and I have no access to it.  The Drive is a
Sony SDT-9000 DDS3 DAT drive.  The SCSI card is an
Adaptec 2930.  I'm using the 2.4.18-0.9a kernel that
I believe came with 2.2 recompiled to include SMP
and the SCSI driver.  I'm running an a dual
processor 500Mhz G4.

Has anyone else gotten this or a similar
configuration to work?  Can I get the drive back
online after it is taken offline without reseting
the system?  

To write to the tape I'm using the command:
tar -cf /dev/nst0 <directory>

I've also tried a:
dump -0f /dev/nst0 <directory>

When I do run either command I can see that the tape
drive is actually trying to do something because is
makes sounds and the busy light on the front starts
flashing.

Here is a sample of the output I get in the log file
when I attempt to write something to the drive:

Mar 17 09:34:49 howard kernel: scsi0:0:3:0:
Attempting to queue an ABORT messageMar 17 09:34:49
howard kernel: scsi0: Dumping Card State in Data-out
phase, at SEQADDR 0x7c
Mar 17 09:34:49 howard kernel: ACCUM = 0x0, SINDEX =
0xb8, DINDEX = 0xa8, ARG_2
= 0xff
Mar 17 09:34:49 howard kernel: HCNT = 0x80
Mar 17 09:34:49 howard kernel: SCSISEQ = 0x12,
SBLKCTL = 0x0
Mar 17 09:34:49 howard kernel:  DFCNTRL = 0x3c,
DFSTATUS = 0x40
Mar 17 09:34:49 howard kernel: LASTPHASE = 0x0,
SCSISIGI = 0x4, SXFRCTL0 = 0x80
Mar 17 09:34:49 howard kernel: SSTAT0 = 0x0, SSTAT1
= 0x2
Mar 17 09:34:49 howard kernel: STACK == 0x0, 0x15a,
0x19b, 0x6f
Mar 17 09:34:49 howard kernel: SCB count = 4
Mar 17 09:34:49 howard kernel: Kernel NEXTQSCB = 2
Mar 17 09:34:49 howard kernel: Card NEXTQSCB = 2
Mar 17 09:34:49 howard kernel: QINFIFO entries:
Mar 17 09:34:49 howard kernel: Waiting Queue entries:
Mar 17 09:34:49 howard kernel: Disconnected Queue
entries:
Mar 17 09:34:49 howard kernel: QOUTFIFO entries:
Mar 17 09:34:49 howard kernel: Sequencer Free SCB
List: 1 2
Mar 17 09:34:49 howard kernel: Pending list: 3
Mar 17 09:34:49 howard kernel: Kernel Free SCB list: 1 0
Mar 17 09:34:49 howard kernel: Untagged Q(3): 3
Mar 17 09:34:49 howard kernel: DevQ(0:3:0): 0 waiting
Mar 17 09:34:49 howard kernel: scsi0:0:3:0: Device
is active, asserting ATN
Mar 17 09:34:49 howard kernel: Recovery code sleeping
Mar 17 09:34:54 howard kernel: Recovery code awake
Mar 17 09:34:54 howard kernel: Timer Expired
Mar 17 09:34:54 howard kernel: aic7xxx_abort returns
0x2003
Mar 17 09:34:54 howard kernel: scsi0:0:3:0:
Attempting to queue a TARGET RESET message
Mar 17 09:34:54 howard kernel: aic7xxx_dev_reset
returns 0x2003
Mar 17 09:34:54 howard kernel: Recovery SCB completes
Mar 17 09:34:59 howard kernel: scsi: device set
offline - not ready or command retry failed after
bus reset: host 0 channel 0 id 3 lun 0
Mar 17 09:34:59 howard kernel: st0: Error 8 (sugg.
bt 0x0, driver bt 0x0, host bt 0x0).
Mar 17 09:34:59 howard kernel: st0: Error 8 (sugg.
bt 0x0, driver bt 0x0, host bt 0x0).
Mar 17 09:34:59 howard kernel: st0: Error on write
filemark.

I haven't worked with tape drives under linux before
so any help that anyone could offer would be great.
 Thanks.

Timothy A. Holtzen
Campus Network Administrator
Nebraska Wesleyan University