#Tape Dont Work!
13 messages in this thread
I have a WangTek ES5525 Scsi Tape drive. It is attached to my Amiga 3000.
A couple of weeks ago, the tape drive stopped working. When I run bru on
the drive now it asks me to insert volume 1 in drive TAPE:. Nothing
hardware or software wise has changed. I have tried a new tape unit, and
it still does not work. I have tried new cables and soforth. All I can
assume is that something on the A3000 stopped working.. But everything
else works fine!!
What is the problem..?
I know someone with a WT5150ES with similar problem – tape unit works
perfect on a 2000 with TrumpCardPro. There are too many weird problems
with A3000 SCSI systems to ignore it any more. Anyone know just what is
with the A3000 SCSI controller that makes its cooperation with 3rd party
peripherals so unpredictable? Do Macs have the same problems with various
SCSI peripherals from different manufacturers? BTW I meant to imply that
the 5150ES I know about works perfect on the A2000/040/TCPro but NO GO on a
A3000. Anyone got a guess?
This isn't directly related to the 3000 & SCSI tapes, but I thought
I'd toss it in here…. The 2091 has a problem with some of the new
Quantum drives, like the LP240S. A new revision (6.9) of the firmware
ROM is supposed to fix this, and might be available this month. I
can't remember whether the 3000 has a ROM for the SCSI or if it's
included in the boot roms. But the 3000's SCSI is similar to the
2091, so maybe there are some firmware deficencies involved here as
well? I heard from someone other than C= that Quantum changed
something in *their* firmware that broke a couple of vendors SCSI
cards. I spent a couple days trying to get an LP240S working on 2091s
with little luck… Finally just put in a GVP series II and it worked
fine.
I heard about the Q240 problems and have tried to alert customers to watch
out. I agree with your solution. Get a real SCSI controller (like GVP or
TrumpCardPro) and just bypass the problems with the 2091-like controller in
the A3000. It's worth the tad extra $$ to get a real fine controller and
be able to work with any drive you choose instead of just the ones that
'seem' to work OK on the A3000.
Daniel,
I'd strongly suspect it's the Western Digital chip, not the
computer or software itself. I've heard some not so nice things about WD
SCSI chips, and have had some weird things occur on one of our AT&T UNIX
boxes at work that also uses a WD SCSI chip.
Don
thank you DON!. finally a real helpful tip on weird scsi problems in Amiga
3000's. just today one of my customers called who's had zero problems with
a drive I sold him and he changed his A2500 over to 2.0 with new roms on
the accelerator (boot roms with SCSI code in 'em??) and now he has problems
with the drive! The drive is perfectly good – and his own experience was
the proof! He had it for months and not a peep out of it til he changed
over to 2.04 …. hmmmm. And that 2500 of course has a 2091 in it! I had
earlier heard of the Quantum 240LPS rom problem (Quantum's rom) and have
been warning people off of Q240LPS's 'til it gets fixed. TrumpCardPro and
GVP Series II products seem to have realiable performance with any drive.
#@(*&$(@#*& that WD chip!
I have had no problems with the A3000 SCSI, except for those of my own
devising, and one small problem due to a diode in the TERMPWR circuit being
put in backward.
I am currently running Quantum 100 meg drives, two ESDI drives on an Emulex
controller, an Archive Scorpion 60 meg drive on an Emulex controller, and
an Archive Python DAT drive. No problems at all with the A3000 SCSI, from
what I can see.
-larry
larry, thanks. the problems only seem to occur with certain drives (which
are perfectly good working drives on other systems). Q100's and Archive
drives I've never heard of causing problems, but Q240's, now a
Wangtek5150ES tape drive (on an A3000 with AmiBack new version) a Rodime
3159T (wonderful fast drive on my TCPro) and a number of Syquests have had
weird and unfathomable SCSI problems on A3000s. I think Don Curtis is
right again and that the WD SCSI chip is the heart of the problem. I've
heard terrible things about WD SCSI drives and am frightened to even try
them or sell them for Amigas. Glad you've managed to escape these thorny
patches, but there are lots of folks with A3000s out there scratching their
heads because of weird SCSI problems with a variety of top quality drives
(that work fine on other SCSI controllers). If anyone's asking after a
high tech large drive from me these days I recommend they get a TCPro even
if they have an A3000. It's worth the extra about $150 just to avoid the
tar pits surrounding the A3000 scsi port.
and larry, was that diode in the TERMPWR circuit part of the Amiga or part
of a drive or what? Was your Amiga wired incorrectly on the SCSI? Urgently
await your reply!
Daniel,
The Amiga was wired incorrectly. It was apparently a case of an engineer
who used to routinely draw his diodes backwards, and someone swapped the
polarity, not realizing that he had done it right this time. 🙂
The only time it affected anything at all was when I had the Archive DAT
unit powered on, and tried to power the 3000 on.
-larry
wow, what a weirdo problem. thanks for the tip. I'll have to look at
it when it comes up. What diode was that? Where is it? thanks
Don't know exactly which diode. I never did anything about it. I
seldom power the machine on with the DAT drive off, so it's a
non-problem. It is the diode in the TERMPWR line, and was probably
corrected pretty early in the life of the 3000.
-larry
thanks. if I get a schematic I'll be able to find it.