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I'm a SCSI moron - need help

M

mee987

Senior member
I don't know much about SCSI. I can't get my SCSI burner (Teac CD-R55S) to work on the same channel as my reader (Plextor 40X). I think that the burner is narrow SCSI-2 and the reader is narrow Ultra-SCSI, but im not 100% sure because both drives were just given to me.

Is there any way for me to use both of these drives on the same channel? Or will I have to get a new burner that supports a newer SCSI mode?

Any help is appreciated. Yes, I know I'm an idiot. In case you are wondering, I'm using an adaptec 2930CU right now and will have a 2940UW within a week.
 
Narrow = 50 pins, Wide = 68 pins.
No such thing as narrow Ultra

If one of them is Wide, then you have to have a wide controller. Assuming that's the case...you need to cable it correctly:

Controller -- Wide Device -- Wide passthrough terminator -- Narrow device -- Terminator.

Notes: The Terminator in the middle is designed to terminate the WIDE part of the channel, while allowing the narrow part to continue. This is a small dongle/adapter of some sort. The Terminator at the end of the chain is a Narrow terminator--often can be set by a jumper on the last narrow device.

If you can, you're better off connecting the Wide device on its own chain, on one SCSI channel, and the Narrow device on its own chain, on a second SCSI channel.

--Woodie
 
UPDATE:

Sorry for lack of specifics earlier, I made that post from school and was unable to get all the info I needed. Here is more info, and detailed description of the problem:

SCSI card: Adaptec 2930CU (SCSI ID 7)
CDR: Teac CD-R55S (SCSI-2, 50-pin, ID 6)
CD reader: Plextor Ultraplex 40x (Ultra-SCSI, 50 pin, ID 3)

Now, in theory I should be able to run both on the same SCSI channel and the reader should bump down to SCSI-2. When I run them on the same channel, they do both show up as drives in windows. However, the CDR can't seem to read correctly. When I put in a divx movie cd and open it in WMP, it slows to a crawl and for some reason it starts trying to access the reader rather than the recorder which has the CD.

The reader works fine.

Anyone know what is up?
 
Sounds like a termination or cabling problem to me. Both the CD and CDR should be on the same cable. Make sure that one of these is connected to the last connector of the scsi cable and make sure that device is terminated. Make sure that the other device(s) on the chain are NOT terminated.
 
How long is your scsi cable? Are you using an active terminator? And, is 5 volts enabled to your terminator from either the card or one of the drives.

Excessive cable length is unlikely; but, your bus length is from end to end. So, you can exceed the cable length limit if you have an external scsi device and an internal device. And, how "known good" is/are your scsi cable(s)? Some of my favorites have died and given me weird problems.

I think your 2930 scsi card autoterminates. So, you should not be unknowingly terminating your bus at the card. (I don't know whether the internal bus or the external bus would quit. Probably the longer one.) Check in the 2930's bios to ensure that auto-termination is enabled.

Make certain that termination is disabled on your center drive. (the one between the card and the other drive.) Your scsi bus should only be terminated at the ends. Use an active terminator at the end(s) of your scsi cable(s) or a pass-through active terminator on the last drive on your scsi cable(s).

Active termination is the way to go. I never use the termination built-in to my drives. Some cheapskate manufacturer might use passive termination.

Passive terminators are resistor networks designed to keep the scsi signal bus at 5 volts. Active terminators use voltage regulators. So, passive terminators work when everything is built to spec. Active terminators work until things are really screwed up.
 
The drives were jumper-set to terminate correctly, but I need to try putting the reader at the end of the cable instead to see if it can terminate better. As for cable length, I was using a 5-device 36" cable but switched to a 2-device 20" cable and it still didn't work.

I'll try switching the drives around when I get home, in the mean time any other suggestions would be great.
 
Also, try to see if there are firmware updates for your scsi devices. If there is/are install them.

I onece had a compatability problem: I added an additional scsi drive to my scsi channel. When the adaptec card (2940uw) got to the new drive during the scsi bus scan, the system froze. Updating the 2940's firmware (bios) fixed the problem.

Plextor has firmware updates, Adaptec does (sometimes you have to e-mail customer support to get instructions for accessing the update), and hopefully Teac also has firmware updates.

There IS such a thing as narrow ultra. The Adaptec 2940u is one and the Diamond multimedia fireport 20 is another. I have one of each.

Paul
 
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