SCSI tape drives.

Petri Alhola petri at digiw.UUCP
Tue Oct 10 23:07:46 AEST 1989


In article <9680 at chinet.chi.il.us> pdg at chinet.chi.il.us (Paul Guthrie) writes:
>
>Has anyone actually got SCSI tape drives to work on ISC 2.0.2?
>Other people have posted this question, and I have never seen
>a reply saying yes.
>
 I sent following succes report to this newsgroup litle time ago, I is
 possible that is lost somewehre.

After many days research work, i have got 386/ix 2.0.2 and
adaptec 1540 SCSI controller to work with archive viper 150 Mbyte
scsi streamer tape. I have found following things to be done before
i got it working. I have also got archive QIC streamer working with
asrhive drivers for archive409 controller board.

1 - SCSI parity in 1540 Parity is enabled as default and in archive
	it is disabled as default. i disabled parity in 1540

2 - SCSI address of arcvhive. 1540 does not regonize archive in all
	addresses . I got it working with SCSI address 2.

3 - The major number of /dev/tape was wrong. The /dev/tape major number was
 	not generated by the kconfig script becouse there was not file
	in /etc/conf/node.d for tape and so major number for tape was
	21 . In /etc/cond/cf.d/mdevive file it was 41. So it needed to make
	new /dev/tape file for right major number.

For testing streamer the rom BIOS utility was usefull, becouse
there was not any diagnostic utilities in 386/ix. And i even does not
found any ioctls to test scsi devices. Using BIOS utility you can
check that the 1540 founds streamer tape before you try use it with unix.

>According to one person, the only success he had was with the tape
>configured with a SCSI ID greater than 4, while the Archive 2150ES
>manual, says that the high bit jumper of the 3 ID jumpers is
>not used, effectively limiting the ID to 3 or less.
>
>Well, I've configured the kernel as specified, upgraded my 2150ES
>firmware to the latest version, and tried about every possible
>combination of jumpers, but with no success.  Opening the scsi
>tape devices (ct or nrct) fail with errorno -1 (PERMISSION),
>even though the actual device permissions are OK, and I was
>root.  The adaptec controller seems to recognize the drive
>(the active light flickers during the adaptec BIOS install),
>and the kernel at least tries to determine SCSI devices (the
>tapes light flickers again during the device inits after the
>copywrite).  
>
  The problem can be in parity. The led flickers even parity is wrong.
  Try check parity jumpers in 2150ES. Try also 1540 bios diagnostic
  with dos debugger
  A:\>debug
  g=dc00:6
  ---- Adaptec bios ----

  This is only good way to see if the bios is regonizing drive.

  I have also tried to get adaptec utilities with uucp from
  adaptex ( see article in this group from neese at adaptex.UUCP)
  completely onsuccesfully.

>Well, I've followed the manuals to the T, and tried about
>everything, but to no avail.  Has anyone actually got this
>working, or is Interactive selling vaporware or the tape drive
>equivilent of their asy  driver?
>
>I am, however impressed with the performance of the SCSI 
>disk driver for the Adaptec.
>I just wish I could back the sucker up with  something that
>takes less time than 300 floppies :-).
>-- 
>Paul Guthrie
>chinet!nsacray!paul


Petri Alhola
petri at digiw.fi



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