Quantum DLT-V4 SCSI not shown as an available storage device

[albyone]

Hello,

 

I am pulling my hair out trying to get my Quantum DLT-V4 to work. The following is my environment:

 

OS: OSX 10.5.8

Hardware: Powermac G4 (MDD)

SCSI Card: ATTO ExpressPCI UL4S (Driver version 4.4.1, Firmware version "April 10, 2009")

Tape drive: Quantum DLT-V4

Retrospect version: 6.1.230 (with RDU 6.1.16.100)

 

According to the hardware compatibility list everything should work, but what I am seeing is:

 

Apple System Profiler sees the drive under:

Parallel SCSI --> SCSI Parallel Domain 1 --> SCSI Target Device @ 4 --> SCSI Logical Unit @ 0

 

And the ATTO Configuration Tool (v3.28) sees the device on Channel: 2 Bus: 1 Target: 4 LUN: 0

 

However in Retrospect under Configure --> Devices, all that I can see listed is the DVD drive. When I select menu item Devices --> Device Status, I can see a device with ID SCSI-A:4:0, but there is no further info (vendor, product... etc) about it.

 

Any help would be appreciated!

 

Thanks,

Al

[rhwalker]

That's a real odd one. I have an UL4D, not a UL4S.

 

However it's a bit puzzling to me that the ATTO Config Tool says you have the device on Channel 2 - shouldn't that be Channel 1 ?

 

Does the UL4S have Channel 2 but not Channel 1?

 

Is the Rerospect "Ignore ID" button greyed out when you select the device? (shouldn't be)

 

Do you have any Quantum diagnostics that you could run to access the drive independently of Retrospect?

 

One thought might be to try reverting to an older RDU - perhaps some bug was introduced in the 6.1.16.100 RDU (although it works on our UL4D with an Exabyte VXA-2 1x10 1u (SCSI) PacketLoader). The RDU archive is here:

RDU Version History

 

RDU 6.1.1.101 looks like it was the one that added support for your drive, so any RDU later than that should work.

 

You also might check your drive's settings or change the SCSI ID in case something odd is happening.

 

Russ

[albyone]

Russ, thanks for your post. See below for responses to you questions:

 

Does the UL4S have Channel 2 but not Channel 1?

It has 2 channels - 1 & 2. I am presuming channel 1 is the internal connector and 2 is the external connector.

 

Is the Rerospect "Ignore ID" button greyed out when you select the device? (shouldn't be)

No, I can select that button, however it does nothing. The Configure button, however, is greyed out.

 

Do you have any Quantum diagnostics that you could run to access the drive independently of Retrospect?

No. There are no drivers made for OS-X.

 

...reverting to an older RDU...

Unfortunately, the FTP server that has the RDU (ftp.dantz.com) is currently down, will try that later though.

 

change the SCSI ID in case something odd is happening

I'll try that now and report back soon.

 

Thanks again,

Al

[rhwalker]

Does the UL4S have Channel 2 but not Channel 1?

It has 2 channels - 1 & 2. I am presuming channel 1 is the internal connector and 2 is the external connector.

That's not how the UL4D is made. With the UL4D, there are external and internal connectors, a set for each channel. One internal connector is paired with each external connector for each channel. It was my understanding that the UL4S simply omitted the parts for one channel. You might check the spec sheet. Sounds like something odd is happening, perhaps at the ATTO .kext driver level. Might wnat to try temporarily reverting to an older .kext. It's my understanding from talking to ATTO support a few years back that the firmware is primarily used during the boot process to get the card recognized, and that the .kext driver takes over after that.

 

Do you have any Quantum diagnostics that you could run to access the drive independently of Retrospect?

No. There are no drivers made for OS-X.

You might try moving the drive to a PC, then, to test it out there. If you have a PCI-x PC, you might try moving the UL4S so that you could test out the card, drive, cable, and terminators if there is a PC diagnostic.

 

Report whether any of the stuff gives any insight into the problem. My only comment is that a UL4D works fine with Retrospect 6.1.230 and your RDU on an xServe G5 with an Exabyte VXA-2 drive and autoloader with Mac OS 10.4.11 Server.

 

Russ

[albyone]

OK, I have it sorted now... It was my lack of attention to detail in the cables I was using.

 

What had happened at some stage is that pins 2 & 3 (or 66 & 67 - cant remember which way up the cable was) were bent together and touching. When the cable was inserted, it managed to cut the plastic separating these pin sockets on the ATTO card and therefore caused some sort of short that ONLY Retrospect had an issue with.

 

Once straightened, all worked fine and I have successfully completed a full backup - Phew!!!

 

Thanks Russ for your suggestion to check cabling etc.

 

Al

[twickland]

Does the UL4S have Channel 2 but not Channel 1?

It has 2 channels - 1 & 2. I am presuming channel 1 is the internal connector and 2 is the external connector.

For future reference, the UL4S indeed calls the internal connector "Channel 1" and the external connector "Channel 2."