On Thu, Feb 03, 2005 at 03:03:22PM -0500, James D. Freels wrote:
> Here is what [drive vendor's Tech Support said] is needed:
> 
> 1) need a separate scsi chain; they said I already have too many scsi
> devices on this chain to make it reliable.

See recent threads re. SCSI cables, bus lengths, etc.  (Recent ==
last month or two).

> 2) need to upgrade the firmware in the autoloader to the latest version;
> this may not work on an alpha machine and more likely will only work
> from an Intel machine

I sure hope you mean only that the upgrade process might need an
Intel box.  If that's the case, doing the firmware upgrades is
the cheapest and probably easiest thing to try, even if you do
have to do some temporary recabling (well, as long as you have an
Intel box with a SCSI adapter...)

If on the other hand you mean that, once upgraded, the unit might
be less Alpha-compatible than it was before ... send the #&!*~
thing back for a refund! :-)

--

|  | /\
|-_|/  >   Eric Siegerman, Toronto, Ont.        erics AT telepres DOT com
|  |  /
The animal that coils in a circle is the serpent; that's why so
many cults and myths of the serpent exist, because it's hard to
represent the return of the sun by the coiling of a hippopotamus.
	- Umberto Eco, "Foucault's Pendulum"