Retrospect hangs while writing

[boxbruce]

I am a new wannabe user of Retrospect Express 5.0 which I purchased with Norton ShystemWorks 2.0.

I use G4 with X.2.4 and 9.2.4. I am trying to use Retrospect in system 9 because X won/t recognize my CD burner. My burner is a LaCie. When in Toast the Recorder Info. is: Model: Yamaha CRW 44165 Where: SCSI Bux ol, ID2 Chche Syc 2MG. I have tried several times to start a file backup. The scan works O.K. Retrospect can see by CD burner. It "erases" the CD, but when it start to write to a CD it hangs up. Can you help me?

[AmyJ]

Can you confirm that your backup set type is a CD backup set, and not a File backup set? I can't tell from your post. The correct type would be CD.

 

The Yamaha 4416S has been supported for many years. Dantz Development has discovered a problem with version "1.0h" in the Yamaha 4416 CD-RW firmware. Firmware version "1.0h" can cause the Yamaha 4416 CD-RW drive to report -100 (device rejected command) during backup. Yamaha is aware of this issue and has fixed the problem with firmware revision "1.0j" or later.

 

To see which version of firmware you have, go to Configure > Devices > Device Status and look at the version column.

 

Yamaha has reported that their drives don't work well with Kodak, Memorex, and Maxell media. They suggest Sony, TDK, or Verbatim.

 

If you continue to experience problems after checking the above, the following troubleshooting will help you isolate the problem:

 

Discerning types of freezes With a lock up on the backup Macintosh, you want to try moving the mouse to see if the ADB bus has locked up as well. If the mouse moves, but the Mac is hung up, it's most likely that your SCSI bus is hung, and you have a SCSI problem. If the mouse doesn't move, that means that the Mac's processor is hung, and you should look at System Software and extensions. More often than not, you will find that the mouse moves and you can force quit the program (at which point the Mac may or may not completely crash).

 

A SCSI hang can be caused by one or more of the following:

 

1) incompatible or faulty media. Try another brand.

 

2) another device on your SCSI bus is interfering with the drive's communication. Make sure your SCSI ID numbers are set correctly. Turn off your Mac and the SCSI devices. Disconnect all SCSI devices except for the CD drive.

 

3) you have a bad cable. Replace the SCSI cable that connects the CD drive to the computer after removing other devices and cables from the SCSI chain.

 

4) you are missing a terminator or have a bad terminator. The last device and ONLY the last device in your SCSI chain needs to be terminated. Try replacing the terminator if you already have one on the chain.

 

5) the computer may be having a problem. Install Retrospect on another Macintosh and try the drive there as the lone SCSI device.

 

6) the drive may be defective. If you have implemented all of the preceding steps and get failures on multiple media after changing cables, terminators and computers, then the drive, being the only factor that has not changed, is the culprit--send it back to your vendor for repairs.

 

The steps above are the essential outline of our SCSI troubleshooting here at Dantz. Hands on testing of device issues is really still the best method and even getting SCSI logging information is usually only to confirm empirical testing. Note that concluding something is a bad device is the LAST thing we assume after all other components and variables have been ruled out.

 

"SCSI voodoo", as they call the nebulous symptoms that can plague a SCSI bus, can often lead one to false assumptions of the cause of problems. It's important that once a variable is tested that it be tested more than once for consistency's sake to rule out dumb luck. For example, SCSI voodoo accounts for why a drive may work fine for many months without proper termination but then suddenly fail in some way later. Although customers will often cite that nothing has changed with their SCSI bus configuration in months and that it was all working before, this is really a hallmark inconsistency of SCSI voodoo.

 

The quickest and most conclusive test for most devices is to test it on more than one computer as the only device on the bus and with a different SCSI cable. If the problems can be reproduced on multiple computers, it's more than likely a hardware problem with the device itself.

 

Of course there a myriad of other specific issues having to do with a device's own hardware settings like with internal jumper cables, dip switches or internal termination that has to be sorted out with the device's manual and/or vendor or manufacturer of the drive but the kernel of SCSI troubleshooting above is a good general guideline.