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FireWire VXA-1 Tape Drive


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I'm running Retrospect Server version 6.0.193 on a G3 iMac with OS 10.3.4 and all driver and firmware updates applied, but Retrospect only occasionaly sees the tape drive. I've swapped cables and ports, but nothing seems to help. The Mac is able to see it in System Profiler, but Retrospect can't. I used to run Retrospect version 4 on OS 9 with the same setup and I never had any problems. Any suggestions?

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Hi

 

One time we carried a firewire VXA around to every Mac in the department as a test. We plugged it in to the firewire port of each machine and looked at Apple system profiler. On some machines the drive showed up perfectly. On others the system profiler listing only showed partial information for the device. In those cases Retrospect did not see it.

 

We found that having the drive powered and plugged in at boot time helped the device be seen more frequently by ASP and Retrospect.

 

Do you have any other firewire devices? If so try unplugging them to see if you have better results?

 

Thanks

Nate

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Thanks Nate for your prompt reply. I'm afraid I've tried all of these options and there seems to be no logical reason why Retrospect sees or does not see the tape drive. As I said before, there was never a problem running the same hardware setup under OS 9. I tend to think it's a problem with Retrospect and Panther, but I could be wrong.

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Hi

 

My opinion is a bit biased but I suspect there are some problems with Firewire in OSX. If this were not an Imac I would suggest installing another firewire card. I've talked to a few users who resolved similar problems with third party FW cards.

 

Nate

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Your mention of firewire cards gave me an idea. Just out of curiosity I plugged a LaCie firewire hard drive I have into the iMac and then plugged the VXA drive into the second firewire port on the hard drive. Guess what? Retrospect sees the tape drive every time. I've shut down everything and powered up several times today, and it has never failed yet. I don't know why it works, but it does. Thanks for your inspiration.

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