Restore from SCSI 8mm tape to Intel iMac using Ratoc FR1SX

[craigf]

I am trying to restore (actually transfer to DVD) some 8 mm tape backup sets made using Retrospect 4.? under MacOS 9.1.

 

I now have an Intel iMac (2GB RAM) running OS 10.4.8

Retrospect 6.1.126 (w/ 6.1.9.102 driver updates)

an Exabyte 8200ST tape drive (SCSI, same one used to make tapes)

a Ratoc FR1SX Firewire-SCSI converter connecting the tape drive to the iMac

 

At the moment, Retrospect finds the tape drive fine, directs it to perform basic commands (erase, rewind, eject, ...) fine, but often fails to restore files with one of the errors:

Bad Backup Set Header Found at ...

Decompression failed due to corrupt input data

 

I believe the tapes are fine (they were read recently on the 9.1 system). I guess the errors are often a result of communication problems. Ratoc claims that the FR1SX works with an Exabye VXA-1 (not sure what computer or version of Retrospect though). I understand from searching the Forums that Retrospect considers (or at least at some point considered) the FR1SX to be unsupported hardware.

 

What seems strange to me is that the errors are fairly reproducible, not random as I would expect from communication errors. That is, many files always work and the files that fail almost always fail (I have managed to get some of the failing files to restore properly when I run Retrospect with no other user processes running).

 

I would appreciate any pointers to getting it working (e.g FR1SX settings, low level parameters to the Firewire port that might help, ...) or confirmation that it is not likely to ever work reliably.

 

Thanks

 

Craig

 

 

PS: My SCSI scanner, which I expected to be more trouble than the tape drive, works fine with the FR1SX/Intel iMac