X-Authentication-Warning: delorie.com: mail set sender to opendos-bounces using -f Date: Thu, 09 Oct 2003 14:11:55 +0200 From: Matthias Paul Subject: Re: SyQuest SCSI w/DR-DOS 7.03 To: opendos AT delorie DOT com Message-id: <000201c38e62$a1e22f00$c03dfea9@atlantis> Organization: Aachen University of Technology (RWTH), Germany MIME-version: 1.0 X-MIMEOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2800.1165 X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2800.1158 Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-priority: Normal References: Reply-To: opendos AT delorie DOT com On 2003-09-22, Gary Welles wrote: Catching up pending e-mail... Thanks for the update, Gary. > [...] XCOPY command stopped with "Not ready error reading > drive C / Abort, Retry, Fail?" and would hang after keypress. > > [...] "could not update destination disk backup file" [...] > > [...] "Unable to properly access backup destination (reason: > non available)" error. [...] > > 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. Hm, XCOPY produced a DOS critical error, the two backup utilities displayed proprietary messages. In either case (and as the first message suggests), it appears as if the medium is not ready for read/write access when these tools attempt to access it. Since even under MS-DOS it does not seem to work reliable, I assume, the whole issue is more down to a hardware or general software configuration problem rather than an actual incompatibility with DR-DOS. One reason for such an error could be a timeout problem. I assume, the Adaptec drivers have options to change the spin-up delay time, the spin-down timeout and the timers for SCSI scattering/gathering etc. Does changing these settings make a difference? Are there any other speed- or protocol-dependent settings? I do have a few (older) Adaptec host adapters laying around here, but at present none of them is set up to work in one of my few test machines here, and I'm more familiar with LSI Logic based SCSI adapters, anyway. (So far I have had no actual problems using various removable drives under DR-DOS (Iomega Bernoulli-150; Iomega ZIP-100, ZIP-250 (external); Iomega JAZ-1, JAZ-2; Mitsubishi LS-120 (ATAPI) with Adaptec SCSI converter; Noma:i MCD750c/i; Nakamichi MJ-5.16 5x CD changer; PlexWriter 12/10/32S CD-ROM (not yet used as writer under DOS), and various other drives) in my main machine using an Asus SC-875 host adapter with LSI Logic SCSI controller and DOS drivers.) Maybe someone else with an Adaptec controller could be so kind to list the timeout configuration options of their cards and drivers? (Thanks, Leonard, for the SyQuest offer, but as time allows I may pick up some old SyQuest drives on (German) eBay, so that shipping cost won't be an issue - however, I don't have /any/ time for it now, so this won't be an immediate help for Gary's problem.) > 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. Well, it ought not to be so, but it cannot harm to put them both under ASPI control at least for testing. Is someone else here using SyQuest drives and having problems accessing them under (DR-)DOS? Good luck, Matthias -- ; http://www.uni-bonn.de/~uzs180/mpdokeng.html; http://mpaul.drdos.org "Programs are poems for computers."