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Post by svart on Jan 5, 2017 8:49:02 GMT -6
So a long time ago I was the unfortunate adopter of the Tascam MX2424 recorder.. The horrible reliability and degraded sound playback aside, it also used SCSI drives for the data.
I used an external SCSI cage with a bunch of drives for the data, and have long since gotten rid of the MX2424 but I still have the cage and the drives.
I bought a really old SCSI adapter card to try to get the data off the drives, but honestly I don't know what I'm doing with it because I haven't been able to get the drives to be recognized at all.
So, any of you IT types ever worked with old SCSI3 type drives, and do you have any knowledge of a modern way to get the data off the drive?
I've found a couple SCSI-USB converters, but they are hella expensive, and I don't want to throw hundreds of dollars away on one if it's not going to work.
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Post by EmRR on Jan 5, 2017 9:04:42 GMT -6
Good luck, hope for a full positive outcome.
I've been pulling data off 23 year old ADAT tapes lately, so far so good with the tapes, machine behavior is another thing.
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Post by svart on Jan 5, 2017 10:22:37 GMT -6
I bought another adapter card, cable and termination as a set off Ebay just now. I'm starting to wonder if the SCSI card or cable/termination I have is even working. The drive spins up, and I can go into the card's bios but it never sees any of the drives I've tried. I can't see them no matter what ID I set them to or anything.
I also can't see the drives if I leave them in the cage and connect the cage to the external SCSI port on the existing card.
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Post by johneppstein on Jan 5, 2017 11:56:06 GMT -6
Were the drives originally part of a RAID array? If so, you might need a RAID card that uses exactly the same RAID scheme as the original - which could mean the same make and model of card.
And you'd need to have all the drives that made up the array connected.
The exception would be if the array was set up for redundancy only, not speed.
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Post by svart on Jan 5, 2017 11:58:24 GMT -6
Were the drives originally part of a RAID array? If so, you might need a RAID card that uses exactly the same RAID scheme as the original - which could mean the same make and model of card. Nah, these were single drives, no raid. I believe they were also FAT formatted. |
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Post by johneppstein on Jan 5, 2017 12:04:59 GMT -6
Were the drives originally part of a RAID array? If so, you might need a RAID card that uses exactly the same RAID scheme as the original - which could mean the same make and model of card. Nah, these were single drives, no raid. I believe they were also FAT formatted. Well, if they were single drives and you can't get any of them to work I'd suspect that you have a bad SCSI card. Since you're a tech guy I assume you know about the whole SCSI termination thing. The terminator itself shouldn't be bad if it's a regular passive terminator - that's just a resistor array. I believe there were active terminators thougth, but I don't remember much about them - I haven't used SCSI since my Amiga days... |
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Post by svart on Jan 5, 2017 12:08:15 GMT -6
Nah, these were single drives, no raid. I believe they were also FAT formatted. Well, if they were single drives and you can't get any of them to work I'd suspect that you have a bad SCSI card. Since you're a tech guy I assuyme you know about the whole SCSI termination thing. The tereminator itself shouldn't be bad if it's a regular passive terminator - that's juist a resistor array. I believe there were active terminators thougth, but I don't remember much about them - I haven't used SCSI since my Amiga days... Yeah, I just realized that I don't actually remember if these drives needed active, or passive termination, nor if this card has either. I need to look these part numbers up and see I suppose. Last time I looked at doing this was maybe 5-6 years ago and I don't remember. The drives were used back in the 99-02 range, so I don't even know if the data is still good or not. HDD data doesn't store forever unfortunately. But I agree, I think the card is bad. I don't remember where it came from, it's been 15+ years since I got it, and I think it was just from a pile of computer parts at work. It's supposed to snow this weekend here (rare) so the city and roads will be shut down and I'll be stuck at home, so I think I'll mess around with this more. |
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Post by johneppstein on Jan 5, 2017 13:06:35 GMT -6
Have fun and good luck!
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ericn
Temp
Balance Engineer
Posts: 14,937 
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Post by ericn on Jan 5, 2017 21:26:26 GMT -6
Plenty of old ATTO cards out their to be had.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Jan 20, 2017 17:24:30 GMT -6
I worked with external SCSI drives with the old Apple Performas.
And i know, why SCSI vanished...
First, perfect termination is essential. You not only need to know about the termination in the SCSI chain, you also need to know if the SCSI card has any internal termination that could be a prob. Always had problems with SCSI drives and especially the cables. One time i managed to roast a drive + cable! It was a wrong and i guess also defective cable, it got hot and started to burn. Maaan. I hated SCSI.
Also, the connectors always made problems, and the slightest problem with cable, connectors or termination and no drive available.
If i remember correctly the Yamaha A3000 sampler that is around here somewhere, had SCSI connector for external drive?!? I used a MO drive or something similar obsolete - same probs. Cables were also very stiff, and connections bad even with plugs locked...
I can only say - good luck. Sorry, it is hard enough to debug if you are sitting directly in front of it, much trial&error.....and always trying out reserve devices to find out where the problem is. I know it can be frustrating.
Edit_ It was a Zip drive! Still have it, because once i planned to re-use it's casing for a micpre, LOL.
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Post by svart on Feb 3, 2017 21:40:41 GMT -6
Well, I did it. I bought a cheap SCSI PCI card and replaced the one I was trying to use. This one worked immediately and I got everything off of 5 drives, although I think some data was missing.
I didn't find what I was looking to find, but it was worth looking for it anyway.
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Post by johneppstein on Feb 4, 2017 15:43:08 GMT -6
Bravo! <clap, clap>
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