SCSI BIOS

You probably have a software problem as far as reading tapes are concerned or
the tape drive may need cleaning, but according to your above stements the
SCSI adapter and tape drive are loading at boot up.

The message: int 13h Device Not found is because you have removed the
                     SCSI HARD DRIVE.
The message: Bios not installed is for the same reason.  You have removed
                     any bootable device(hard drive) from the SCSI adapter.

if this SCSI adapter is an ADAPTEC, you can press CTRL+ A when you see
the scsi adapter loading on boot-up, and you will be able to go into the
scsi setup and remove the BIOS on bootup setting if you like, and this error
will go away, but it probably will not help your tape reading problem.

If I were you, I would get a good cleaning tape and clean the Tape Drive heads,
and also re-install the software for the tape drive.

-> Ok with Satwa.
BIOS : only for harddisk support.
No harddisk -> no load ...
It's not a problem, just a warning...

THey nailed it right on the head. I gotta be more quick with this. good job guys.

Tape drive (unless I missed it) is a HP DDS3 Dat drive correct?
What software is it using?
What is the problem, you are having with the tape drive?

Just a note on the tape drive: cleaning tapes are one-shot use only; that is, they cannot be rewound once they have reached EOT. The tape drive firmware keeps a record of how often it is cleaned, and how long it took before being cleaned once it has requested it. Eventually, if the drive is not cleaned, the drive will refuse to accept tapes at all - when you insert a tape, it will spit it back out immediately. To fix this, turn of the tape drive, insert a cleaning tape and then power on the drive. The cleaning tape will cycle, and the drive will be happy.

Dirty heads will show up as low throughput on reads/writes (down from say, 10Mb/min to 800k and less) and hard I/O or media errors in the backup software logs

Caution! Not cleaning the tape drive will void the warranty (depending on vendor) - the vendor/supplier can query the drive's firmware to check!

Hope this is of some help.

Just a note on the tape drive: cleaning tapes are one-shot use only; that is, they cannot be rewound once they have reached EOT. The tape drive firmware keeps a record of how often it is cleaned, and how long it took before being cleaned once it has requested it. Eventually, if the drive is not cleaned, the drive will refuse to accept tapes at all - when you insert a tape, it will spit it back out immediately. To fix this, turn of the tape drive, insert a cleaning tape and then power on the drive. The cleaning tape will cycle, and the drive will be happy.

Dirty heads will show up as low throughput on reads/writes (down from say, 10Mb/min to 800k and less) and hard I/O or media errors in the backup software logs

Caution! Not cleaning the tape drive will void the warranty (depending on vendor) - the vendor/supplier can query the drive's firmware to check!

Hope this is of some help.

Have you cleaned the tape drive to see if your tape drive problem is resolved,
as I and others have recommended??

Satwa Thanks
The problem (after reading the manual!!) seems to be the backup software not being compatible with the tape drive.
(Thanks Jason_S)
A suggestion to what software I could use would be helpful
It is a DDS3 drive

I will repost the question to give the provider of the answer regarding the software requirment some points as well

Almost any third party tape software will work with this drive.  (Seagate Backup Exec, etc)  The manufacturer (HP) will also have some software that will work with it.

I have tried both Seagate, which reported no device and Colorado, which loaded all the devices into system manager but not the drivers. When I ran Colorado and tried to format the (new) tape, I got a GPF. I have also tried to add the tape drive by using the "Add hardware" option in control pannel

As I have suggested before:
Have you cleaned this tape drive with a good quality cleaning tape?

If you have not, that may be the whole heart of your problem.

You have tried Seagate Backup Exec?  Which version?
Did any software come with the drive?
Does Device Manager show you the tape drive?  Any errors on it?

The Colorado software most likely will not work for you.

Make sure that you have the latest SCSI drivers for your card. (Adaptec 2940?)

The software will either recognize that the drive is there, or it wont.  If the software is recognizing the drive, and you simply can not read it, than satwa may have the answer.

sorry I havn't replied recently - work got in the way -

The problem I had was that I could not format tapes.

I have cleaned the head - but it still would not format them! (It showed that the tape in the drive was in an error condition) (Using Colorado)

However I noticed that the clock was set to 2099 and when i changed it to 1999 I could format the tape, which proberbly means I've got a non complient version of colorado.

I will try a new version of colorado next week and see if that solves the problem.

Please wait a little longer proberbly next tuesday and i will sort the points out.

Thanks for your help

If this works I will give both Jason_S points for pushing me in the right direction and Satwa points for the original answer (and getting me to clean the tape head)

Thank you ewocks.

Do let us know what you find.

I upgraded to the latest version of colorado and every thing seems ok

Thanks again for you input

If satwa answers this question I will post another for Jason_S

Sorry for the time it has taken


Best Regards

Glad to have helped.