Ultrium/ SCSI config

[brian johns_1]

I have an Ultrium 215 hooked up to an Adaptec 29160 on the IN (bottom) port of the drive. When the scsi card is detecting devices it will not detect the device until i power cycle the drive. If i put the cable on the OUT (top) port is does detect the drive. Now, HP says in the manual to NOT do this but when i call support they cannot tell me why i am having the problem, nor can they tell me why they say not to put it on the out port. Now i know they typically the out port is used to daisy chain to another device but it seems to work. Needless to say it is very frustrating. The machine is going overseas and no one will be around to power the tape drive off on a reboot.

thanks

[Jan Klier]

The drive has an auto-termination feature, which means you are not required to use an external terminator on the unused connector at the drive.

One thing worth trying would be to use an external LVDS/SE terminator on the unused connector. It could be that the auto-termination does not handle your situation well, and that external terminator does a better job.

[Mike Kramer]

I know it doesn't seem logical, but when I had the exact same problem, I found that the pins on either end of the cable were bent. Not much, and not broke, but it through me off bigtime. I would troubleshoot like you did and was lead to inaccurate conclusions, like that it seemed it was the port on the drive, but not the cable. Just a thought.
Also, I would double-check SCSI BIOS settings.