DEC TZ88, AlphaStation600, SuSE AXP 7.1 and Kernel 2.2.19

Hello,

I want to use teh Digital TZ88 Tape drive in an external storage. The
kernel finds the device but I cannot write to it, nor erase the tape. I
do not know what to do, maybe one of you can help me.

Attached are several information I have collected:

dmesg reports:
Detected scsi disk sdb at scsi0, channel 0, id 1, lun 0
Vendor: DEC       Model: TZ88     (C) DEC  Rev: D473
Type:   Sequential-Access                  ANSI SCSI revision: 02

trilian:~ # mt -f /dev/st0 status
drive type = Generic SCSI-2 tape
drive status = 419430400
sense key error = 0
residue count = 0
file number = 0
block number = 0
Tape block size 0 bytes. Density code 0x19 (unknown).
Soft error count since last status=0
General status bits on (41010000):
BOT ONLINE IM_REP_EN

trilian:~ # mt -f /dev/st0 erase
mt: /dev/st0: Input/output error

trilian:~ # tail -f /var/log/messages
[...]
May  9 13:25:09 trilian kernel: st0: Error 26030000 (sugg. bt 0x20,
driver bt 0x26, host bt 0x3).

TIA
Bjoern Berg

GeneSys GmbH
IT-Services - Software-Engineering
Müller-Breslau-Str. 30a
45130 Essen, Germany