From: Rudolf_Neuhaus@ouzonix.bo.open.de (Rudolf Neuhaus)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.hardware
Subject: SCSI-Streamer on A3000
Distribution: world
Date: 25 Aug 92 19:14:55 CET
Organization: Ouzonix Bochum

Hi there,
I hope some of you know, what is going on with SCSI-Streamers for the
A3000. I have some Problems, here they are:
I got the following Streamer:
---
DEVICE scsi.device UNIT 4
    Inquire Page 0x00 
      01 80 01 00 2e 00 00 00 ----.---
      54 41 4e 44 42 45 52 47 TANDBERG
      20 54 44 43 20 33 36 30  TDC 360
      30 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 0       
      2d 30 37 3a 30 36 43 52 -07:06CR
      45 41 54 45 44 31 31 31 EATED111
      00 00 00                ---
     Peripheral Device Type: Sequential Access Device (e.g. magnetic tape)
     RelAdr:   0 (relative addressing mode supported)
     WBus32:   0 (32 bit wide transfers supported)
     WBus16:   0 (16 bit wide transfers supported)
     Sync:     0 (synchronous transfers supported)
     Linked:   0 (linked commands supported)
     Reserved: 0
     CmdQue:   0 (tagged command queuing supported)
     SftRe:    0 (Soft-reset on RESET cond, else hard)
---
I don't know, what all of this means, but maybe you do just perfectly and
can see the Problem right here. It's a 150 Meg QIC tape streamer.
First of all I tried to back up with BRU. The Entries for the tape in
BRUTab look like this:
---
tape: \
   size=0 seek=0 bufsize=200K noreopen rewind \
   prerr=5 pwerr=5 zrerr=5 zwerr=5 frerr=5 fwerr=5 wperr=30 \
   advance tape rawtape device=scsi.device unit=4
ntape: \
   size=0 seek=0 bufsize=200K noreopen norewind \
   prerr=5 pwerr=5 zrerr=5 zwerr=5 frerr=5 fwerr=5 wperr=30 \
   advance tape rawtape device=scsi.device unit=4
---
seems to be the standart. None of my Problem is solved by just using a
fixed tapesize or buffersize.
The PROBLEM is the following: i start out to save with bru -cvvf tape:, so
my comp fills up the 200K Buffer and then starts writing to tape - then he
does the second Buffer and so on. But suddenly he just stops with the drive
LED burning and not doing anything any more. Sometimes the drive I tried to
backup is not validated any more. This was some months ago. Now he doesn't
seem to get any further than the first block, then he stops, but the other
tasks are still working all right.
 
You could think one of the following could be the PROBLEM:
- wrong termination:
  with the Mac(actually the streamer is for a Mac) we always back up
  without any problems. First I have tried just the regular termination
  everyone would think of: the tape is external and the last one on the bus
  so it's terminated. Then I tried it with a special terminator for the
  Mac2fx, I tried internal termination, external - just everything - and it
  seems that that's not the problem.
- software:
  i tried several software packages not only my own but also my friend's.
  some tape-handler in connection with tar or gnutar, Quarterback 5.02,
  gvp-Tapestore and so on - always the same problem.
 
some other observations I made:
- I can read from the tape no problem. For example I managed to backup a
  tiny part of my drive and could always restore it.
- tools like tape and magtape work no problem, well, magtape always
  returned "Unit not ready, scsi status is 2" when invoking it the first
  time - the second time there never is a problem.
- with my old Amiga 2000 and a Golem SCSI-II Controller everything just
  worked fine.
- inquirepage just used for unit 4 brings up the list at the top of this
  message and then hangs after writing "Inquire Page 0x02 error code  5
  (0x05) Illegal Request" quite a few times.
 
That's it. I think you got my problem, so if you know anything to fix this,
please let me know.
Thanks in advance,
Rudy
 
---
Rudolf Neuhaus           Tel: +49-(0)231-103703/103861
Kreuzstr. 144           Mail: rudy@iml.fhg.de,
4600 Dortmund 1               uphd02@DDOHRZ11.bitnet
Germany                       or here

-- DLG Pro v0.992
---
Rudolf Neuhaus, Tel. 0231-103703        also:  rudy@iml.fhg.de
Kreuzstr. 144 - 4600 Dortmund 1              uphd02@DDOHRZ11.bitnet