I have a Dell 530 with SCSI for its hard drives. I have added a Adaptec 2940UW SCSI card for an external DLT drive. When the pc boots, it sees both cards but it does not see any devices that are on the 2940UW card! I have tried different cables, devices and terminators. I have even tried different cards! Anyone have any suggestions? Thanks!
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SCSI card problem! help! 1
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Most devices will be detected with the default BIOS settings, unless there is an ID conflict with another devices on the SCSI Bus, then both devices may not be seen.
There are some devices such as scanners, CD-ROMs, slide scanners, tape drives, that may not support BIOS functions such as "Sync Negotiation", "SCSI Bus Reset" or "Disconnect" and this may be why they not be detected.
For some non-wide devices, such as some CD-ROM readers, the default value of a wide SCSI card for "Initiate Wide Negotiation" and this may need to be disabled within SCSI Select, Configure View, and SCSI Device Configuration. Also some device will require the "Parity" option to be disabled for the device to be sensed.
Device detection at the hardware, BIOS level can be initiated by accessing the Ctrl+A using SCSI Select (the SCSI cards BIOS) at boot time and then selecting the SCSI Disk Utility option. This will scan the SCSI Bus and report the SCSI devices attached. This is a hardware level inquiry and the device must be seen at this level, before the OS can pick it up.
If the device cannot be detected, or the system locks during the bus scan, changing the parameters may resolve the issue. If changing parameters in the BIOS does not allow the device to be detected, check cable(s), SCSI ID configuration, termination, total cable length, or replace the device with a known good device.
Note: If the device being attached still does not appear through the SCSI Disk Utilities, then try attaching one device at a time, to determine what ID each device is set to and see if there is an ID conflict.
There are some devices such as scanners, CD-ROMs, slide scanners, tape drives, that may not support BIOS functions such as "Sync Negotiation", "SCSI Bus Reset" or "Disconnect" and this may be why they not be detected.
For some non-wide devices, such as some CD-ROM readers, the default value of a wide SCSI card for "Initiate Wide Negotiation" and this may need to be disabled within SCSI Select, Configure View, and SCSI Device Configuration. Also some device will require the "Parity" option to be disabled for the device to be sensed.
Device detection at the hardware, BIOS level can be initiated by accessing the Ctrl+A using SCSI Select (the SCSI cards BIOS) at boot time and then selecting the SCSI Disk Utility option. This will scan the SCSI Bus and report the SCSI devices attached. This is a hardware level inquiry and the device must be seen at this level, before the OS can pick it up.
If the device cannot be detected, or the system locks during the bus scan, changing the parameters may resolve the issue. If changing parameters in the BIOS does not allow the device to be detected, check cable(s), SCSI ID configuration, termination, total cable length, or replace the device with a known good device.
Note: If the device being attached still does not appear through the SCSI Disk Utilities, then try attaching one device at a time, to determine what ID each device is set to and see if there is an ID conflict.
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Take the 2940 out - remove any traces of it from Windows. Reboot.
. Look in Device Manager or your Win version's equivalent to find out where the BIOS of the Dell SCSI is loading on the Properties > Resources tab. It will be a memory range something like: 00CC00 - 00CDFF .
. Then Shutdown, restart and go into your system BIOS. Look for a way to reserve Upper Memory Blocks (it will be Cxxx, Dxxx, etc. - the leading 00s are usually dropped), reserve a block other than what your current SCSI BIOS IS taking. Then reinstall your 2940 and see if it's sign-on doesn't appear so you can press Ctrl-A to get into its settings - even if the Adaptec sign-on and C-A prompt doesn't appear, you can still start pressing Ctrl-A as soon as anything from the system BIOS appears on the screen and you should be able to enter the SCSI setup. While you're in the card setup, go ahead and set up the parameters for your tape drive -which, since it will be the only device on the cable, should be set to ID-0
(no jumpers on the ID pins).
. Actually you could disable the BIOS on the 2940 as you won't be booting from a tape drive anyway. You can either do that by jumper (some models) or within the Ctrl-A settings.
That should help resolve the problem.
. And what are you doing for termination of the tape drive? No termination, no workee! If you aren't using a good external active terminator (best!), be sure the internal terminator of the tape drive is Enabled (Term jumper).
. Just out of curiosity, since a SCSI host adapter (controller to the unwashed) can handle 7 or 15 devices, why did you decide to add another controller to add just one more device?
.bh.
B-)
He who dares not offend cannot be honest. -- Thomas Paine.
. Look in Device Manager or your Win version's equivalent to find out where the BIOS of the Dell SCSI is loading on the Properties > Resources tab. It will be a memory range something like: 00CC00 - 00CDFF .
. Then Shutdown, restart and go into your system BIOS. Look for a way to reserve Upper Memory Blocks (it will be Cxxx, Dxxx, etc. - the leading 00s are usually dropped), reserve a block other than what your current SCSI BIOS IS taking. Then reinstall your 2940 and see if it's sign-on doesn't appear so you can press Ctrl-A to get into its settings - even if the Adaptec sign-on and C-A prompt doesn't appear, you can still start pressing Ctrl-A as soon as anything from the system BIOS appears on the screen and you should be able to enter the SCSI setup. While you're in the card setup, go ahead and set up the parameters for your tape drive -which, since it will be the only device on the cable, should be set to ID-0
(no jumpers on the ID pins).
. Actually you could disable the BIOS on the 2940 as you won't be booting from a tape drive anyway. You can either do that by jumper (some models) or within the Ctrl-A settings.
That should help resolve the problem.
. And what are you doing for termination of the tape drive? No termination, no workee! If you aren't using a good external active terminator (best!), be sure the internal terminator of the tape drive is Enabled (Term jumper).
. Just out of curiosity, since a SCSI host adapter (controller to the unwashed) can handle 7 or 15 devices, why did you decide to add another controller to add just one more device?
.bh.
B-)
He who dares not offend cannot be honest. -- Thomas Paine.
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- #4
Thanks guys I will try all these ideas tomorrow. Zepper, the reason why we added the scsi card was that the one that came with the Dell has no external port which is what we needed to add the DLT drive. I will let you guys know how I make out tomorrow! Thanks again!
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- #6
Hi guys!
Okay I tried everything and nothing worked! I even took the scsi card out and tried it in a optiplex GX260 and a Precision 220 and the same issue, the card does not see the device. I then took a HP CD burner external and hooked it up to the card and it worked. Given the fact that these dlt 4000's are legacy maybe that has something to do with it. But I tried everything you guys suggested and modified the scsi bios and nothing. The funny thing is that out of four cards and four different cables, they each do not work for nthe dlt. There must be some setting that is preventing the card from sensing the device! What do you think guys? On my pc I have a 2160 adaptec card and it detects the dlt with no problem. makes me crazy! lol
Okay I tried everything and nothing worked! I even took the scsi card out and tried it in a optiplex GX260 and a Precision 220 and the same issue, the card does not see the device. I then took a HP CD burner external and hooked it up to the card and it worked. Given the fact that these dlt 4000's are legacy maybe that has something to do with it. But I tried everything you guys suggested and modified the scsi bios and nothing. The funny thing is that out of four cards and four different cables, they each do not work for nthe dlt. There must be some setting that is preventing the card from sensing the device! What do you think guys? On my pc I have a 2160 adaptec card and it detects the dlt with no problem. makes me crazy! lol
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