GeeWhiz@cup.portal.com (Paul Terry Pryor) (04/09/89)
Oboy, the Irwin 40mb (model 445) 1/4" cartigage drives are driving me up the wall already ! The tape drive is external kind, which attaches to external port at back of DTC floppy card controller. On my personal Xenix 286 2.2.3 box, I was unable to perform tape i/o of any kind. Until I (on a hunch or some pure luck) tried backup command. Afterwards, my tape drive worked great. On a multiuser Xenix 286 2.2.3 box, the tape drive was purring along. Until I removed the dual 40mb ST-506 CDC drives and installed 160mb ESDI CDC Wren II drive with Western Digital ESDI controller. During the intermim (when CDC Wren II was in), I could not hook up the tape drive. A month later, the 160 mb drive had to go, and I reinstalled the dual 40mb drives with DTC controller. The tape drive now balks at any tape i/o. The problem is very serious ! If I attempted to access the tape drive, the Xenix system locked up real cold. A power cycle (on/off/on) was necessary to regain control. And fsck had to be run. I am suspecting a very flakey tape driver (or incompatible upgrade of Irwin tape drive ROM). Any help greatly appreciated ! Thanks.