23.020 I have a IIgs ROM01 with system 6.0 and I am trying to add a SCSI Tape backup unit. I have an Apple Hi-Speed SCSI card and 2 drives connected currently. The tape drive is off an old unix box. I have the ID set to 3. I loaded the system 6.0 SCSI tape driver but nothing showed up on the desktop. What's wrong?
Description
This article is from the Apple II Csa2 FAQ, by Jeff Hurlburt with numerous contributions by others.
23.020 I have a IIgs ROM01 with system 6.0 and I am trying to add a SCSI Tape backup unit. I have an Apple Hi-Speed SCSI card and 2 drives connected currently. The tape drive is off an old unix box. I have the ID set to 3. I loaded the system 6.0 SCSI tape driver but nothing showed up on the desktop. What's wrong?
I have recently gone thru this dilemma myself... First of all, I believe
that the GS driver is partial to the 3M mechanism as found in the Apple SC40
tape unit. I tried a Tecmar drive (whatever mechanism that is) on my GS, and
though it recognized the drive on boot as a SCSI device, when I went into
archiver to try to back something up it didn't acknowledge the drive's
presence, although the SCSITAPE device showed up in GS/OS. I later found a good
deal on an SC40 and hooked it up and it works perfectl
y, though I am still curious about making the Tecmar work, though I doubt it
will.
#1. I have read that you should set the SCSI ID on a tape drive to 0 (lowest
priority) if this will help any... this seemed to eliminate annoying searching
of the tape drive on boot.
#2. Another thing-- The tape drive will NOT show up on the System desktop. It
does not work like a regular drive. You need a special program (aka Archiver in
GSOS or I believe there are some 8 bit programs, too) that knows how to store
files on the tape.
Open Advanced Disk Utilities when in GSOS and see if the SCSITAPE unit is
present-- then you will know the drive was identified ok. Then the next test-
- see if you can backup. Open archiver, set your "backup to..." device as
SCSITAPE and hit start.
When the thing says "insert first backup tape" you insert a tape and hit
OK. If it starts giving you errors or repeating the message, then GS/OS doesn't
like your tape unit. If it works... then go out for a pizza or something while
the thing whiles away at your files. Try recovering selected files after the
backup to make sure the archive went ok so you can begin trusting in your tape
backups.
----------------------------
By: Bill Harris
The device number (other than being unique) should not be relevent to
backing up to tape. I've always used something in the middle range of numbers
for my tape, typically id 3 or 4. This included when I was still using the RF
prom for backup.
----------------------------
By: Rubywand
RamFAST has a Backup function you can get to via Ramfast.system.
You need to have the "HD Backup" option under the [O]ptions menu set to
"No" in order to use tape (instead of something like a Zip Drive) for backup.
Then, you can select [B]ackup from the main menu bar.
Regarding the SCSI device number setting, 3 may be fine on a RamFAST.
Probably, you would want to remove any Apple drivers named "SCSI ..." from the
DRIVERS/ folder to eliminate possible conflicts with the Ramfast driver.
By: Glynne Tolar
Continue to:
My Books
