External SCSI HDDs

From what I've read, Tiger seems to have some issues playing nice with the 2906 card. One post I came across had someone juggling the scsi device order around in order to get their scanner to show up under Tiger.

Silly question perhaps, but have you installed the most recent OS X 2906 drivers from Adaptec?

I have numerous Adaptec cards and none of them are supported under mac OS X 10.3 or later. Best thing would be to buy a cheap ATTO card off ebay.

Do you have them terminated and IDs set properly?

formats of a drive can do strange things, even when just showing up under hardware. The other thing is that you NEED to have a terminator block on the end with Adaptec cards (well, at least mine do) and I don't think I had to have them terminated on the G3 Beige that I have (but I don't recall if that was true or not)
If all else fails, try looking on Adaptec's site for Documents relating to the setup of the card. another thing is to check the cable connections. Make sure they are seated right, and also check to see if all the pins are in the connectors.

Some hard drives have termination jumpers on the small logic boards (hardware driver boards?) that run the Hard drive. You might want to make sure that the drives are not terminated or that you have several terminations through-out the chain. That might cause problems.

make sure it is terminated at the end and ONLY the end. Sometimes a card will terminate itself at the card, I don't know if that is true on all cards (Judging from reading a topic here on the jackhammer card, it seemed that the card had to be terminated as well as the end)

See, this is why I don't mess with SCSI it's just too much of a head ache. Once you have it set up, it's fine, but fiddle with it, and it will give you hell all over again

Hello George,
Just to narrow down the problem , have you tried installing any of the drives on the internal card buss ?
Shooting in the dark here...

Dave

Is the ATTO stock from a Beige G3? IF it is it won't work in OS X because it doesn't have ATTO firmware. You need to flash it. Does OS X see the ATTO at all in system profiler? You sure your SCSI cables are plugged all the way in?

Again , I was just troubleshooting.
If adrive was recognised on the internal buss but not external that would help solve some issues.

Right, the ATTO card needs to be flashed over to ATTO firmware before you can do anything with it in OS X. To flash it you can do 1 of 2 things, put it in a PC and flash it with the ATTO Firmware updater, through DOS. Or try this...

" Hi Mike !
Firstly, I'd like to thank you for your great site !
But I write you to let know one think I've juste discovered and experienced. I don't know if you knew this.
I've a PowerComputing PTP225 (very great machine !) and received from a friend an Apple UltraWide SCSI Card coming from a Beige G3 Server. And I suppose you know it's an Atto ExpressPCI PSC with an Apple ROM.

I wanted to use the Atto Express ProTools to fine the tuning of the card with my different SCSI peripherals, but it was impossible (no Atto card found). So I tried to flash the card with the Atto firmware flasher. No luck though, "no Atto card found" too
So here is the method :

Download the ExpressPCI PSC flasher (1.64U at this moment).
[Use the support/downloads link at www.attotech.com-Mike
Download the MacOS X SCSICard Updater (on Versiontracker e.g.).
[I could not find it at VT, but the FAQ here has a previous direct download link to the update here that still worked as of today-Mike]
Make a copy of the Mac OS X SCSI Card Updater application.

Open ExpressPCI Pro Updater 1.6.4U with ResEdit, open the "firm" ressource, copy the ressource ID 128 named "Firmware". Open Mac OS X SCSI Card Updater with ResEdit too, open the "firm" ressource, paste what you copied. Replace the old ressource ID 128, rename it with empty name (to be sure, eventhough I don't think it change something). Close and save de modifications.

Run Mac OS X SCSI Card Updater, flash the card.
And voila, you've got a "full" Atto ExpressPCI PSC !

I've reflashed it with the ExpressPCI Pro Updater 1.6.4U to be sure it's good, and there isn't any problem. Now I can use the Atto Express ProTools as if I had bought an Atto retail version.

I hope this will be useful for someones,
Mike. " (taken from here... http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/SCSI/atto_oem_flashrom_tip.html )

Oh and BTW that Mac OS X SCSI card updater can be found here...

http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/4965

Your in the same corner I was in. I ended up just doing it with DOS.

Your going to want this...

https://www.attotech.com/software/driver7.html

Just click the pc version and do what i said in the PM i sent you earlier.

That card is already flashed with the latest Apple firmware, explaining why you can't use the Apple flasher to re-do it with the ATTO firmware.

Just figured you'd like to know. I have the same situation with one of my PSC cards, can't use the Apple flasher. My other card still had the old Apple firmware so that one I was able to flash to ATTO firmware.

Flash on a PC eh . . . ? But if it has the wintel firmware, can it then be flashed to the Mac version?

dan k

The card has both PC and Mac firmware on it. Using DOS to rewrite the firmware gives your choices to rewrite either just the windows, just the mac or both. i used the both option and my card is working perfect. IIRC i had to use a bootable floppy to do this trick.

Boy, I'll tell you. I just get tired from reading through all this. If you're dealing with SCSI-2, my suggestion is to dump these old SCSI cards and buy an Adaptec 29160N PCI SCSI card. I picked up a couple of them on eBay last year for about $25 each. It has two channels--an internal SCSI-3 Ultra 160 and an external HD50 SCSI-2 channel. Works like a charm, recognizes my external Centronics SCSI HD and my SCSI scanner, no problem in both OS9 or OS 10.3.9 while my main internal harddrives connected to the same card are flying at SCSI-3. Don't know about Tiger. The technology on the 29160 is much better and more versatile than the older cards, and you'll also have the option of adding internal SCSI-3. I believe you can even buy the PC version and easily flash it to a Mac ROM. Might save you a lot more time and headache and offer you room for much more powerful growth.

Just did a search on eBay, "29160n mac." There's one there right now that ends today, $2.99 starting bid, no bids (the seller should probably give me a commission now). I've seen a few Mac cards up for auction that didn't say Mac in the title. Those always sold for the cheapest.

Adaptecs are not supported under Mac OS X 10.3 and above.

Adaptecs are not supported under Mac OS X 10.3 and above. Not to mention Adaptec stopped updating the drivers for Mac.

Unfornuately I still seem to have problems with the external SCSI bay, OS 9.2.2 will not boot with it attached; and OS 10.4.8 will boot, but does not see any SCSI devices. I have tried two separate cables, with no difference; so I have arranged to take the bay to another Mac over the weekend.
George

I have experienced that before. generally it's a broken trace either in a chip, or on the board. If the internal works, it means something is wrong with the card's traces (or chip if there are two SCSI Controllers on it) and it generally either putting up with it, or throwing it out and getting a new one.

My Beige G3 did that. The internal SCSI Chain went out, but the External worked. After about a month, the SCSI System died altogether. So if that is the case, you will be looking for another card soon.

There could also be something wrong with the drive enclosure you are using. DO the drives spin up? Do you have a volt meter you could test the voltage of the Cases powersupply with? Make sure all the SCSI cables are connected properly in the case, also make sure, if it is a removable case, that no pins are bent on either inside the case or on the external cable you are using.

"Adaptecs are not supported under Mac OS X 10.3 and above."

Well, that depends on what you mean by "supported." No SCSI manufacturer, as far as I know, provides SCSI support (utilities) for OS 10.3 and above. That doesn't mean that those SCSI cards don't work in OS 10.3. Apple supports SCSI in Panther by including drivers for ATTO and Adaptec SCSI cards in the OS 10.3 System Extensions. Go see, they're all right there, at least, most of the ones that were associated with macs in recent history. When I have problems that require a utility--like a non-mounting drive--I simply boot back into OS9 and fix it and then return to Panther--problem solved. I have no experience with Tiger, so I don't know if the extensions are there or not.

That 29160N sold for $2.99. I'd lay odds it would have solved this problem if the problem is not in the drive bay itself.

I just had a conversation a couple of days ago with the owner of one of the top video production companies in this state. He said that he had invested in new Macs, but found that the SATA drives did not perform as needed for his video work and that he was advised to go back to his G4 SCSI setup, so there you go.

I have two 29160 cards and they both kernel panic my G4, G5, and G3. I have had these cards exchanged and still had the same problem. This is iunder Tiger though. I then discovered that Adaptec had stopped making drivers for the Mac. I also discovered that Retrospect no longer supported Adaptec cards. I then called apple and they told me that they hadn't updated the driver since 10.2 and that they are not going to be updating it in the near future.