GregM Posted March 13, 2006 Report Share Posted March 13, 2006 I'm a new Admin taking over an existing Retrospect Backup system. Basically the old admin updated to 10.4 and everything broke. Mainly because their SCSI card isn't supported in 10.4, it's an Orange Micro Grappler 930u. We downloaded Advansys drivers and got the SCSI card to be recognized. As well both tape drives, were easily recognized. One is a Sony AIT-1 Drive in a SCSI case, the other is a DDS2 4mm drive in a SCSI case. Both drives can recognize tapes, recognize if the wrong tape is in the drive, read the names of the tapes, as well as format and rename tapes. However when ever I try to do a new backup on a new tape, or recover data off of an existing tape. It starts the process fine, rewinds the tape, and begins searching, finds the file, or begins to write the file.... but then it stalls. Initially it reports a great read and write speed, but that quickly slows down. As well looking at the amount transfered it always reads 0.01 or 0.1 (I forget which and am not in front of the server now). Anyhoo, it stays stalled on that number for hours, even all night. It never errors out and never finishes, it just keeps trying to transfer the rest of the data. If oft times rewinds again, as if it played to the end of the tape, and is now trying to find the data again. But never finishes. I tried a few different set ups. All produce the same results. Makes me wonder is I simply have a setting wrong. Bellow are the listed setups I've tried. 10.4.5 with Grappler 906f and 930u, both tape drives, new tape, existing tape 10.3.9 with Grappler 906f and 930u, both tape drives, new tape, existing tape 10.2.8 with Grappler 906f and 930u, both tape drives, new tape, exsiting tape Also, we are running nightly backups to hard drive. They work flawlessly. So the program is working, just not with our SCSI tape drives. Any thoughts or suggestions. Followed most trouble shooting, as we've tried different cables and terminators, and 3 different computers with 2 different SCSI cards and two tape drives. They all manifest the same probmlem. So I fill it's probably more something with my settings then my equipment. But am open to any ideas. Thanks in advance for the tips and advice, Greg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twickland Posted March 13, 2006 Report Share Posted March 13, 2006 Quote: Followed most trouble shooting, as we've tried different cables and terminators, and 3 different computers with 2 different SCSI cards and two tape drives. That won't help if none of the SCSI host adapters are supported under 10.4. The problems you report are typical for SCSI communication errors. Just because you can see the drive or begin writing to it doesn't guarantee that all is well. Confirm with the manufacturer that the cards are indeed supported under your system version, and that you have applied any necessary firmware updates and downloaded the latest drivers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GregM Posted March 13, 2006 Author Report Share Posted March 13, 2006 I agree about it not working under 10.4. That's why we tried an older system, and ran things all the way back to 10.2. Are card is supported in a 10.2 configuration. As for verifying that we have the latest firmware and or drivers. That's proven difficult to do, as our card is an Orange Micro Grappler series. And Orange Micro has gone out of business, and there's no way to gain access to their latest drivers or firmware updates. Done quite a few google searches with no luck. But I believe we do have the latest and greatest, as it did work before the upgrade to 10.4. So reverting back to 10.2, were the configuration last work should alleviate the problems should it not. That being said, is there any other config settings I should check on other then drivers firmware and cabeling. Something in the Retrospect program itself. Or does it sound like since its a SCSI communication problem, my only choice is to keep trying to trouble shoot the SCSI drivers and firmware. That being said, the only card I found that seems to be approved for 10.4 useage is the ATTO, but it looks like all their current cards are PCI-X only. Are there any currently sold and supported cards that work on a G4 tower in a standard PCI slot? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twickland Posted March 13, 2006 Report Share Posted March 13, 2006 I think it's probably a waste of time to try and get your old SCSI cards to work; I'd spend the couple hundred bucks for something that's currently supported. ATTO's cards are PCI-X capable, but are backward-compatible with standard 32-bit PCI. We successfully used an ATTO UL4S in an old graphite G4 until we moved it to a G5. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GregM Posted March 13, 2006 Author Report Share Posted March 13, 2006 Thanks for the tip. We'll give that a try and then get back and let you know how it worked. Greg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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