Adaptec SCSI card

Thanks, all, for the suggestions. I'm totally flustered with this issue. Been working on it most of the day! According to what BDAqua found, I see that this card may not work with OS 10.4, but kind of hard to believe it wouldn't. (Hope that's just a post that was only current up through the 10.3 era.) The "Ask Adaptec" site Michael found does include 10.4.

I did find that 1.3 driver, and it is designed for Classic - not OS X (as is the SCSI probe). Fact is, this computer also runs an old (but still good) scanner booted in Classic mode, and everything is working great from that side. (Only use the scanner 4-5 times a year - hate to buy a new one when it still works.)

I do seem to have all the possible, appropriate extensions in OS X. In fact, I dumped all and reinstalled them through Pacifist. Still have the problem. This tape drive is accessed only through Retrospect, and I'm wondering if something in Retrospect is causing the problem instead of the SCSI connection, but I thought kernel panics were generally hardware related. When I access the drive in Retrospect (like to configure it), even if I don't "use" it, I get a kernel panic when I close Retrospect. If I try to restore a file, as it searches a tape, I get a kernel panic.

I examined the kernel panic log. Obviously, it doesn't mean much, but the text on every crash ends with:
com.apple.iokit.SCSITaskUserClienp
or
com.apple.iokit.SCSITaskUserClient(1.4.9) . . . and some numbers/letters.

I also see "SCSI" in a couple of other places in the report, so I do believe it's a SCSI problem, but I'm baffled.

I might reinstall Retrospect and see if it helps, but I'm not optimistic that it will. Guess I might also try installing 10.3 in a partition that already exists on the drive, boot in 10.3 and see if the SCSI connection starts working. (If it would, guess I'd have to reformat the drive, reinstall everything and stop with the 10.3 install.)

Any other ideas?

Thanks,
Ginny

The scanner only works in 9.2 - have to totally reboot the computer in Classic to use it. Since it works, though, it leads me to believe the actual SCSI card hasn't gone bad. (Also, when I do an "about this Mac" in 10.4, the card and tape drive also show up, and it doesn't crash at that time.)

I might mention that the SCSI chain is same as it was on the original computer this was set up on (in 10.3), in fact, I removed one SCSI device that was between the scanner and tape drive. Addresses do not duplicate, and the tape drive terminates the chain, as it did before.

Retrospect is version 6.1. I did repair the permissions after I got the computer totally set up (I'd hoped), but might do it again tomorrow morning. Can't hurt.

I'm still thinking it's a SCSI hardware issue but which may be caused by a software issue. Can't imagine Retrospect could cause it, but maybe.

Thanks,
Ginny

The scanner software will only work when the computer is booted in native OS9 - not when starting Classic within OSX. It's old, but works great the few times a year we need it!

This tells me, though, that the SCSI card and my SCSI chain is "healthy." There's just something in OSX that's causing me a problem. (Perhaps I should figure out which version of Retrospect last worked in OS9, install it and check the tape drive connection in native OS9 on this "new" computer???)

I'm also thinking about reinstalling Retrospect and rebuilding everything from scratch, as much as I hate to do this. (I really don't like Retrospect - it's a pain to work with (and perhaps all backup software is a pain), but it works for our small group, and it's cheaper to upgrade it as needed rather than buy into something all new.)

And maybe it will just "magically" work this morning??? (Ha Ha!)

Thanks,
Ginny

Well, finally figured out that, in spite of the Adaptec extensions showing up in OS 10.4, this Adaptec SCSI card is not compatible with Tiger - at least in its communications with Retrospect. I reconfigured the G4 1.25 back to 10.3.9, and all is well. One person in the Retrospect forum, in particular, was very knowledgeable and helpful on this.

So, we're probably set for another year or two, until we need more space for our backups, at which time, will hopefully be able to get away from SCSI!

Ginny