Attaching DAT drive to U320 HBA

[Alan Morris_5]

We are trying to connect an internal C1536 DAT drive to HP U320 SCSI card. We used a uw/lvd cable and used a 68-50 adaptor to plug into the tape drive. However the scsi card is not recognising the tape drive. We suspect a termination issue. I wonder can anyone suggest any pointers to resolve this?

Regards,

[Satish M.S.]

Compaq recommends equipping the server with a 32-bit Fast-SCSI-2
Controller or higher. Any of these controllers fully supports the Compaq DAT
Drive.

Please see the URL for the recommended SCSI HBA's:

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/Document.jsp?objectID=lpg50063

FTP link for tape drivers (DDS1)

ftp://ftp.compaq.com/pub/products/storageworks/tape_drivers/

thanks
satish

[Russell C. Smith · Accepted solution]

Hi Alan,

Before attempting to answer your question I feel I should let you know that the C1536 DAT drive is very old and no longer supported. What this means is that it is very unlikely that this drive has been tested with the HP U320 SCSI card you're using so there are no guarantees that it will work.

Getting to your question, here are what I would suggest:

1) Check your cable connections again. Sounds trivial but disconnected cables are a lot more common than most people think.

2) Check your "uw/lvd" cable termination. Is there a terminator block on the end? Have you used this cable with this C1536 drive before? The C1536 drive is a single-ended device (as opposed to Low Voltage Differential, LVD, device). Are you sure the cable's termination is also SE? Look on the terminator block on the cable to see if it says SE/LVD or look for any markings for SE. If you can't find any then the cable terminator probably doesn't have SE termination.

3) If it does have SE termination make sure you have the cable connected the right way round. The end without the terminator should be connected to the SCSI card, the end with the terminator should be connected to the tape drive.

4) Check the pins in the cable connectors, make sure they aren't bent.

5) Check the SCSI card's BIOS configuration. Make sure that the SCSI card is set to AUTO termination.

6) Check the power connection to the drive. When you power-on your system do the drive lights turn on? They should.

Question, is it the SCSI card that is not recognising the drive or the operating system? When you power up your system the SCSI card does a scan of its bus to find devices connected to it and then lists the ones it finds. Does it list your drive here? Also, what operating system are you using?

I'd advise you carry out the above steps one at a time in order to pinpoint the cause of the problem.

Hope this helps,
Russell

[Alan Morris_5]

Many thanks your suggestions. The LVD/UW cable is terminated hi & low and as per Russell's thoughts I think that this is the key problem.

We have replicated the issue on an Adaptec UW card so I think this confirms it. If we plug the drive into a SCSI-2 device all is well. So we plan to abandon the HP (LSI) card and order an Adaptec card with a SCSI-2 internal interface.

Many thanks again your suggestions and help.

Regards,

[Alan Morris_5]

See comments in previous item.