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Message-Id: <QQphec03745.200309212335@mr3.ash.ops.us.uu.net>
From: "Gary Welles" <gary AT wellesway DOT com>
To: OpenDos <opendos AT delorie DOT com>
Date: Sun, 21 Sep 2003 19:33:51 -0400
Subject: Re: SyQuest SCSI w/DR-DOS 7.03
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Reply-To: opendos AT delorie DOT com

| My SyQuest SyJet cartridge drive has worked for years under BIOS
| control, but hangs when I attempt to operate it with the ASPI
| manager (ASPI8DOS.sys) and either the SyQuest (SQDRIVER.sys) or
| Adaptec (ASPIDISK.sys) device drivers.

I had limited success with a otherwise bare MS-DOS 6.22 configuration vs
DR-DOS 7.03 equivalent (including stacks=9,256):

With MS-DOS, I aborted 4DOS "COPY c:\*.* d: /s" after it had
beavered away for more than an hour without problems.  A similar
XCOPY command stopped with "Not ready error reading drive C /
Abort, Retry, Fail?" and would hang after keypress.

DR-DOS BACKUP R1.09 would hang both, again after appearing to
work for some time, with a "could not update destination disk
backup file" leaving a zero length files with DR-DOS and large
files with MS-DOS.

Using the Novell DOS version of Fastback Express with MS-DOS I
was able to do a "Compare" of the backup files on the SyQuest
cartridge with hard disk C:.  However attempting to backup from
C: to the SyQuest produced an "Unable to properly access backup
destination (reason: non available)" error.  With DR-DOS it is
possible backup a limited number of files.  Attempting to backup
or compare the full hard disk will always hang the machine.

So far it seems that anything that slows the rate of transfer
with the SyQuest will extend the amount of data that can be
transferred before the machine hangs.

When both SCSI SyQuest cartridge and SCSI Harddisk on under BIOS
control there are no problems.  I'm beginning to think the
problem is related to having one under ASPI management and the
other under BIOS.  The problems look like flow control problems
with serial transfers between two machines.

I'll have to try with both disks under ASPI next.

-- Gary Welles