HP6400 48AL DDS2 Autoloader

[Caleb Ronsen]

I recently aquired this drive and I can't find any decent support information on it. The drive powers up, the front panel works, it loads tapes, it unloads tapes and it goes through the cleaning cycle. However, when connected to a PC with an Adaptec 2930u, the system will not boot. When scanning the SCSI bus, the Adaptec BIOS will see the SCSI CD-ROM drive which is ID1 and then hangs. It reports an error that the SCSI bus has timmed out. This also happens in the Adaptec BIOS utilty. The system boots fine with the Autoloader turned off, but not when turned on. The Autoloader is SCSI ID5 and autoloader setting 3 (it's an external drive) the CD-ROM is internal. The SCSI bus is terminated. I tried setting the autoloader's ID not to scan during boot up, I also tried setting the SCSI speed to 5MB/s and 10MB/s and tried it with Ultra SCSI turned on and off.

I could not find a manual for this drive or any support information or FAQ. Are there any support resources left for this autoloader?

[Marino Meloni_1]

hi,
it should be a dds2 autoloader,(not sure aboout the description) but, usualy these unit have only one scsi id, and the HBA need to support LUN mode (in HBA scsi bios setting)
the second switch is to set the mode it has to operate.

[Caleb Ronsen]

Yes, I was aware that it's a DDS2 Autloader. I was actually looking for a link to a users manual or a list of what the autoloader settings are or even if there any instructions on how to boot up the autoloader, like it has to have a tape loaded before it will respond or if i have to set the time out setting to more than 45 seconds on the SCSI controller.

[David Ruska]

The DDS3 autoloader is pretty close to the DDS2 autoloader. Here's link to the manual pages:

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/DocumentIndex.jsp?contentType=SupportManual&locale=en_US&docIndexId=179911&taskId=101&prodTypeId=12169&prodSeriesId=42847

[David Ruska]

The DDS2 AL should work on the Ultra SCSI card you mentioned (2930u).

You should be using an active SCSI SE terminator on the autoloader. I assume you also have devices on the internal connector. If that is the case, make sure the HBA termination is set to automatic or disabled.

[Caleb Ronsen]

I'm swapping the autoloader out with a single DDS2 drive. The autolaoder is using the same SCSI ID and the same cable and terminator. There were no problems with booting up with the single drive powered up. I even tried swaping the positions of the cable and the terminator, and got the same results.

[David Ruska]

That would lean things toward the autoloader having bad SCSI hardware. Did the previous owner say it was working?

[Caleb Ronsen]

The autoloader was used on an NT server about two years ago. It was replaced with a DDS4 autoloader and this one went into storage. The previous owner said that there were no problems with it when they replaced it, other than capacity, and that they no longer have the manual.
The manual for the Surestore DAT24x6e was nice, but has it been confirmed that the autoloader settings and the internal switch settings the same between the two generations?

[David Ruska]

> but has it been confirmed that the autoloader settings and the internal switch settings the same between the two generations?

I don't recall any differences between the DDS2 & DDS3 autoloaders. The DDS4 changed to the HD68 pin connector (from LD50), but otherwise it is the same as the DDS3 (and they share the same manual). The only difference I know is DDS4 supports OBDR.

The HP6400 AL48 was a C1560. There was a similar product called the HP SureStore 12000e (C1561A). The HP6400 model might have been sold for unix/mpe connect (just a guess).

Sorry, I can't seem to find any electronic copies of manuals for the DDS2 AL.

[David Ruska]

Going back to your earlier comment:
> I'm swapping the autoloader out with a single DDS2 drive. The autolaoder is using the same SCSI ID and the same cable and terminator. There were no problems with booting up with the single drive powered up.

There's a difference between the drive and the autoloader. The autoloader uses SCSI LUNs (the internal drive is LUN0 and the loader is LUN1).

The default on the 2930U card (via SCSISelect) is:
BIOS Multiple LUN Support: No (disabled)

I would not expect this to cause the computer to not boot however.