steverogers Posted April 11, 2002 Report Share Posted April 11, 2002 I'm trying to get an Exabyte 8500 working with an Adaptec 2906 using OS X 10.1.3 on a G4 Retrospect sees the drive, and everything seems to work, but after about 16 MB are copied to the tape, the program hangs and the drive stops showing data transfer. I've tried playing with cables, IDs, adding and removing other devices, termination, etc. Nothings seems to change the behavior. It always hangs in the same place every time. Anyone know what the cause might be? Drive used to work on my old Mac 8600 under OS 9 with built in SCSI . . . Steve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
waveman Posted April 13, 2002 Report Share Posted April 13, 2002 Steve, Take a look at the thread about problems that people are having with the Ecrix VXA-1 drive and post there. It's possible that the 8500 is too old to work under OS X, but your symptoms are similar to mine, so there may be something else that's wrong. -waveman Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steverogers Posted April 13, 2002 Author Report Share Posted April 13, 2002 I looked back through the VXA-1 postings and the problems sound similar. I did find the 1.0 Adaptec driver in my System/Extensions folder. I deleted it and all the other unused ones, but the behavior is still the same. at 16 MB (about), it hangs. The only thing left would be updating the firmware on the 8500, and I hesitate to do that . . SR Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
waveman Posted April 13, 2002 Report Share Posted April 13, 2002 It's hard to see how updating the drive's firmware could make things worse, since it's not working as it is. Is there any way you can upgrade the firmware and then, if it doesn't help, revert to the current version? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steverogers Posted April 13, 2002 Author Report Share Posted April 13, 2002 > It's hard to see how updating the drive's firmware could make things worse, since it's not working as it is. Well, if the firmware update screws up, my drive is hosed for all practical purposes. I looked at having an 8500 worked on about 5 years ago, and it was about the same price as a new drive. if Adaptec or Dantz release an update that fixes the problem a week later, then that's just extra irony. Also, I can't find the pin-out for the serial monitor cable documented anywere, and I don't have a PC with SCSI in it right now. The update process itself has a few obstacles to overcome. > Is there any way you can upgrade the firmware and then, if it doesn't help, revert to the current version? Doesn't appear so. Only the latest one is online. If it didn't help, there would be no need to revert. The only problem is the chance that the firmware update would fail and I'd have no working drive at all. Steve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IrenaS Posted April 17, 2002 Report Share Posted April 17, 2002 What kind of connection does that tape drive have? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steverogers Posted April 17, 2002 Author Report Share Posted April 17, 2002 Its 50 pin internally in a case with the old style 50 pin SCSI connector with a bar in the center of the connector. I have a cable that's old-to-new 50 pin that goes to the SCSI adapter, or other devices in the chain. I used this configuration for a couple of years with the built-in SCSI on a Mac 8600 - all the same cables and hardware, and Retrospect 4.3 The difference now is the computer - Adaptec card, Mac OS X, and Retrospect 5. Steve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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