jbg@wsc-sun.boeing.com (James Glidewell) (06/12/91)
A recent experience I've had may be useful to others... My configuration - Mac Plus PCPC ext. 40 meg (Quantum) APS SyQuest System 7 (most of the time ...) ... Both the Syquest and System 7 are new acquisitions and I've been doing a lot of disk shuffling of Syquest cartridges. What I found was that sometimes, for no immediately apparent reason, dragging a syquest icon to the trash and then physically unmounting it caused the Mac to hang with a watch cursor. I was quite puzzled by this, as I knew I had successfully unmounted Syquest disks earlier. The explanation came in a recent post by Malcolm Pradhan, who mentioned that SCSI Probe 3.0 "fools" the Mac into thinking that the Syquest was not removable (this was a "feature" for him as he could then use the Syquest for VM). Testing last night indicated that I could safely "trash" syquest disks if they had been mounted with the APS PowerTools which came with the drive. And that disks mounted with SCSI Probe 3.0 resulted in a hang. So .... SYQUEST USERS BEWARE - DON'T ATTEMPT TO PHYSICALLY UNMOUNT SCSI PROBE 3.0 - MOUNTED SYQUEST DISKS !!! PS's - Does anyone know of a DA/CDEV which will mount SCSI disks which keeps them marked as removable? Is this a bug in SCSI Probe, or was it intentional/unavoidable? Anybody know of any SCSI-mount/unmount XCMDS? -- Jim Glidewell jbg@wsc-sun.boeing.com uw-beaver!bcsaic!wsc-sun!jbg
coxr@piccolo.ecn.purdue.edu (Richard L Cox) (06/13/91)
jbg@wsc-sun.boeing.com (James Glidewell) writes: >My configuration - >Mac Plus >PCPC ext. 40 meg (Quantum) >APS SyQuest >System 7 (most of the time ...) >What I found was that sometimes, for no immediately apparent >reason, dragging a syquest icon to the trash and then >physically unmounting it caused the Mac to hang with a >watch cursor. >The explanation came in a recent post by Malcolm Pradhan, who >mentioned that SCSI Probe 3.0 "fools" the Mac into thinking >that the Syquest was not removable (this was a "feature" for >him as he could then use the Syquest for VM). >Testing last night indicated that I could safely "trash" syquest >disks if they had been mounted with the APS PowerTools which >came with the drive. And that disks mounted with SCSI Probe 3.0 >resulted in a hang. So .... >SYQUEST USERS BEWARE - > >DON'T ATTEMPT TO PHYSICALLY UNMOUNT SCSI PROBE 3.0 - >MOUNTED SYQUEST DISKS !!! I just got a Syquest and System 7 also and neither I or an associate of mine have had any hanging trouble with SCSI Probe mounted carts. I didn't even try to put the Drive Init (Extension) in and neither have had any hangs as a result. I flipped all three carts I have this morining several times? Sorry you are having trouble but you might have to look at some other causes. My config is: Mac IIci Internal Quantum 80 Relax Syquest System 7 (all of the time - I love it) "And the kids they dance, they shake their bones" -GD peace -Rich Internet: coxr@ecn.purdue.edu
huff@mcclb0.med.nyu.edu (Edward J. Huff) (06/17/91)
Some points regarding Syquest drives and SCSI Probe 3.0 (The reported problem was a hang upon dismount when using SCSI Probe 3.0 to mount Syquest cartridge, but not if APS Power Tools application was used to mount the cartridge.) 1. The exact behavior depends on the driver which the formatting software writes on the disk. In my experience, the first driver loaded seems to stay around, at least judging by the Icon displayed. I surmise that SCSI Probe just loads the driver from whatever cartridge you insert. Does anyone know for certain? Therefore, it would be interesting to hear exactly which driver James Glidewell (jbg@wsc-sun.boeing.com) was using, vs. the driver used by Richard L. Cox (coxr@ecn.purdue.edu). 2. By the way, some driver software is not compatible with system 7. A long list of disk driver software was posted a few weeks back. I have an APS drive and a Mass Microsystems drive on another system, and I needed new software from Mass Microsystems (which they sent free, so I finally got a little for the very inflated price I paid a few years ago). The APS software received early this year is supposed to be OK. 3. Using an earlier version of SCSI Probe and the APS driver, I once encountered the case where a "Please insert the disk xxx" modal dialog box was up, but I needed to get to the control panel to run SCSI Probe to mount the disk, and couldn't. Maybe the command key mount option of SCSI Probe 3.0 would fix this, I haven't tried it. Using the Mass Micro drive with the APS driver and SCSI Probe 3.0, leaving the Mass INIT out of the system folder, I have been finding that the second cartridge inserted comes up without manual intervention. I had trouble other times if I had an application open on the cartridge, and wanted to get some data off another cartridge. I ejected the first, mounted the other, then got a "Please insert" dialog, and eventually had to reset the system. I conclude that Syquest cartridges cannot be reliably treated "just like floppys". Especially avoid using the eject command vs. trashing the icon. Be sure to quit applications loaded from the cartridge before ejecting it. Does anyone out there really know what is going on in the driver software? Is the SCSI interface on all drives the same, or do some drives need different software? How different are the drivers from various manufacturers? Can I use a format program from one manufacturer on a different manufacturer's drive?