SCSI tape drive with Adaptec adapter...

[Tom Taylor]

On Monday 06 September 2004 19:42, Gregory Gulik wrote:
> Sorry for the delay in getting back to everyone on this.
>
> Anyway, quick update, my SCSI tape drive doesn't work.  The original
> post was here:
>
> http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-list/2004-August/msg05266.html
>
> First, to answer the question below, yes, the CD-ROM drive and the tape
> drive are found by the SCSI card BIOS screen just fine.  If I use the
> built-in utilities the device comes up just fine as well.
>
> Anyway, I tried several things and something isn't right.  My
> brother-in-law gave me his known working Adaptec 2940U card, same model
> as mine, just appears to be a newer revision.  I also have a different
> internal SCSI cable from him, this one with a terminator built-in to one
> end.
>
> After rebooting Kudzu found something changed and had me unconfigure the
> old card and configure the new card.  Fine with me.
>
> However when it finished booting I found the card wasn't really
> recognized.  The aic7xxxx driver had not been loaded.  WTF!
>
> If I load it manually with "modprobe aic7xxx" it shows up in dmesg:
>
> scsi3 : Adaptec AIC7XXX EISA/VLB/PCI SCSI HBA DRIVER, Rev 6.2.36
>          <Adaptec 2940A Ultra SCSI adapter>
>          aic7860: Ultra Single Channel A, SCSI Id=7, 3/253 SCBs
>
> (scsi3:A:4): 5.000MB/s transfers (5.000MHz, offset 15)
>    Vendor: CONNER    Model: CTT8000-S         Rev: 1.17
>    Type:   Sequential-Access                  ANSI SCSI revision: 02
> Attached scsi generic sg5 at scsi3, channel 0, id 4, lun 0,  type 1
> st: Version 20040403, fixed bufsize 32768, s/g segs 256
> Attached scsi tape st0 at scsi3, channel 0, id 4, lun 0
> st0: try direct i/o: yes (alignment 512 B), max page reachable by HBA
> 1048575
>
>
> I did check termination.  I used to use SCSI a lot, but it's been a few
> year.  The SCSI card has auto termination built-in at it's end and I had
> the jumpers installed on the tape drive for Term Power and Term Act to
> be turned on.  I also tried this new cable with a big terminator pack
> attached to the end of the SCSI cable with the tape drive connected at
> the connector just before it.

*****************************************
If you have a terminator on the end of the cable then the on-drive terminator 
should be set to OFF or NOT ACTIVE.  Having two terminators causes an 
improper load on the controller resulting in errors.  Don't think that is the 
REAL problem here though.  

It's been several years since I used a 2940 and don't remember the cards 
configuration settings.  Have you tried the Adaptec and Seagate (they bought 
Conner) web sites?

Tom
*****************************************



>
> Any other ideas???
>
> Chris Ruprecht wrote:
> > When the SCSI BIOS shows up on your boot screen, does it see the CD-ROM
> > drive?
> > If not, the most likely cause for it not beeing seen is that it is not
> > working.
> > Usually, you do not need a driver for SCSI devices - I have never needed
> > one in my 11 years of Linux.
> > Things to check:
> > Does the CD-ROM drive have a unique SCSI-ID? This is settable with a few
> > (3) jumpers and is binary encoded. No jumper -> SCSI-ID 0, 3 jumpers ->
> > SCSI ID 7 - which is usually used by the Adaptor, so chose 0 - 6 only.
> >
> > Do you have the SCSI termination right? The last device on the kable
> > needs to be terminated or you have to add a terminator (not Arnold) to
> > the last connector of the SCSI cable. You should also set the adaptor to
> > be self terminating and make it the first/last device on the cable.
> > Never have the adaptor sitting somewhere in the middle.
> >
> > Best regards,
> > Chris
>
> --
> Greg Gulik                                 http://www.gulik.org/greg/
> greg @ gulik.org

-- 
Tom Taylor
registered linux user #263467

"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful - and so are we,"
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