On Friday 04 February 2005 09:41, James D. Freels wrote:
>I specifically pointed out to the Exabyte tech support that I
> thought the Linux tools
>provided with the tape drive were Intel-specific and because I had
> an Alpha, it would
>not execute properly.  I knew this because I had already tried to
> use them prior to
>calling Exabyte.  I already had the latest firmware upgrades and
> tools ready as I was
>going to do this anyway.  But, before I had tried it, I already had
> a call into Exabyte
>tech support to see if it was really necessary to upgrade the
> firmware in my case.
>This was 2-3 phone calls into their tech support.  They finally
> returned my call and
>by this time I had already made significant progress.
>
>I agree that I should insist on getting a version of their utilities
>that will run on
>this Alpha/LInux machine.  When talking with the tech support, he
>actually read
>the system requirements back to me as we looked at them together on
> the web
>and he pointed out it just says "linux 2.4.x" and does NOT specify
>particular arch.
>Indeed, the same tools are available in other OS besides Windows and
>Linux, so it
>should be fairly easy for them to recompile or provide the source so
> I can compile
>for my Alpha.  I will make this request because I should not have to
>uncable and
>boot up an Intel machine specifically for this purpose.
>
>
>When you say "cabling" issues, does this include a separate scsi
> card specific for the
>tape drive ?  I think my cable connections are good.

I don't recall mentioning cableing issues, but its  certainly possible 
given the widespread miss-understanding of the specifics of setting 
up a bus system thats actually a transmission line and MUST be 
properly terminated.  Even then it may call for sacrifical virgins 
etc to make it work if the term power is substandard as delivered 
down the cable from the host.

>The scsi card I have is a "LSI Logic / Symbios Logic (formerly NCR)
>53c875 (rev 04)"
>All devices are indicating on boot up (dmesg) at 40 MB/s except the
>CD-Rom which
>is indicating 10 MB/s.  I have 3 hard drives, 2 tape drives
> (including the new one
>having trouble), and 1 CD-Rom in this scsi chain.  I have tried all
>three scsi drivers
>available for this card in the linux kernel 1) ncr53c8xx, 2)
> sym53c8xx, and 3) sym53c8xx-2.
>The ncr53c8xx driver seems to give the least problems, so I have
>concentrated on
>this one.  As I said, the "library" (autoloader) seems to work
>correctly, but it
>is just the tape writing that is giving me problems at present.  It
> is able to label the tapes,
>but not write a larger data set to the tape.

This does begin to have the flavor of cabling/term problems about it.

Q:  Are all devices on the cable with this tape drive the same width, 
eg all 50 pin or all 80 pin?

Q: If this drive is not the last on the cable, and at the very end of 
the cable, have the drives terms been removed?

Q: If this drive is a narrow drive (50 pin connectors) and the card a 
wide, 80 pin card, has the extra, unused lines of the cable been 
terminated?  If so, where?

Grab a meter, and check the voltage available on one of the data lines 
when the system is powered up but quiet.  Anything less than 2.75 
volts is going to require the virgins, or replacing the silicon 
isolation diode on the card with a much lower voltage drop schotkey 
type in order to get adequate term power.  3.0 volts there should be 
the target to shoot at.

>On Thu, 2005-02-03 at 23:17 -0500, Gene Heskett wrote:
>> On Thursday 03 February 2005 17:49, James D. Freels wrote:
>> >No.  It should be still Alpha compatible.  The problem is that
>> > the firmware upgrade utilities
>> >for Linux are binary-only so I cannot compile them for the alpha
>> > nor run them on the alpha.
>>
>> Are you saying its not a case of dd if=inputfile of=tape-device? 
>> They may have it wrapped up in something thats intel specific, but
>> I'd almost bet a cold one that this intel specific loader does
>> exactly that, particularly if its an admin program that has to be
>> pointed at the file to be used for the upgrade itself.
>>
>> That doesn't mean you should jump right up and do it, but I'd sure
>> be an inquisitive fly on the wall :)  Talking to those folks like
>> you might know what to do will often get the info even if they
>> don't want to confirm it.
>>
>> Otherwise, I think if they insist on its being a wintel box that
>> does the upgrade, I think I'd be a bit pushy about haveing them
>> send someone out with the correct gear to do the upgrade if you
>> don't have suitable gear on site, and definitely do it for
>> nothing.  It should have been uptodate when it was shipped IMO.  I
>> mean most changers are well above the 2000 dollar bill priceing
>> range, some 10 to 20 times that price.   For that you can
>> reasonably expect it to work, or they should be very co-operative
>> about remedying the situation since the loss of the sale isn't
>> exactly pocket change to either of you.  Use that leverage,
>> politely, but use it.
>>
>> >On Thu, 2005-02-03 at 16:19 -0500, Eric Siegerman wrote:
>> >> 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! :-)
>>
>> And thats your leverage.  There are more or less accepted
>> protocols to running one of these things, and if in their haste to
>> make it a proprietary device so they have a locked in customer,
>> they have seriously broken the protocols, you shouldn't want it
>> anyway.  What happens when you need to make a bare metal recovery
>> and don't have, anyplace but on one of the tapes, a copy of the
>> required
>> protocol/access routines & the support contract has expired? 
>> Thats not a scenario I'd want to find myself in, uh uh, no way
>> Jose etc...
>>
>> >> --
>> >>
>> >> |  | /\
>> >> |
>> >> |-_|/  >   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"

-- 
Cheers, Gene
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
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Copyright 2005 by Maurice Eugene Heskett, all rights reserved.