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Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.questions Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!news.Hawaii.Edu!ames!decwrl!netcomsv!netcom.com!duncan From: duncan@netcom.com (Donald K. Duncan) Subject: He's Back Message-ID: <duncanC56IA2.9ww@netcom.com> Keywords: Julian Elischer Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest) Date: Thu, 8 Apr 1993 19:03:37 GMT Lines: 60 I tried to post this earlier but didn't see the posting. My apologies if it is a duplicate. I received the following from Julian and he asked me to pass it along to the net: **************************************************************** From: Julian Elischer <julian@jules.DIALix.oz.au> Message-Id: <9304080310.AA00113@jules.DIALix.oz.au> Subject: scsi tape problems To: duncan@zycad.com Date: Thu, 8 Apr 1993 11:10:37 -40962758 (WST) Content-Type: text Content-Length: 1665 was sent a copy of your 'news' item regarding problems with the scsi tape driver. Aren't scsi manufacturers wonderful? you'd think that if one of their tape drives acted in one particular manner, the others would, but no... as you have noted the 212[05] drives and the 5150 drives act differently, and both act differently to the exabyte. trying to make a single driver that can handle them all is like trying to write a pun that works in 3 languages! I used to have the problem of having to have the tape out of the exabye during boot. basically the exabyte took SO LONG to selftest that the scsi system gave up and went away, at which point the exabyte then responded, confusing the #$^%$# out of the system. there is the possibility that if you don't mind a slow boot you can fix it by adding the config variable "SCSI_DELAY=20" in your kernel config file. that will make the scsi system hang around an extra 18 seconds (the default is 2). Another option is to make the tapedrive speed up. The staff at exabyte told me there is a jumper on the drive to make it do a shorter selftest. (if 20 secs is not enough try 40) e.g. options "SCSI_DELAY=40" I have only JUST got a scsi system available to me again so I can start testing again, but I was expecting a rewritten tape driver to look at from Helmuth Michaels (spelling?) but I then moved. He did some work on it and I'd like to get his work integrated before I start on it myself. I just need to find out who/where he is? if you could, could you post this response to usenet, so that 1/ people know I haven't deserted th scsi system 2/ people can find me 3/ helmuth can find me 8-) julian **************************************************************** -- duncan@zycad.com (Donald Duncan - WB6QMS)