I'm getting SCSI timeouts on my tape backup drive. The box is a Dell Poweredge 1300. (I know it's old). I swapped the drive but nothing changed. The SCSI controller in onboard. My Dell rep suggested a new controller card PCI and cable which I now have in my possesion (AHA-2940). The manual says to load aic7870.dsk or aic78u2.ham drivers in the startup.ncf.  My concern is that there already is a line loading aic78u2.ham in the startup. I'm not sure how to proceed. Any suggestion would be appreciated.

STARTUP.NCF
load mps14.psm
load scsihd.cdm
load nwaspi.cdm
load idecd.cdm
load pedge.ham slot=1
load aic78u2.ham slot=10008
load ideata.ham port=170 int=f

Thanks
Tim

What is the existing on-board scsi controller attached to NOW??

If nothing, then you can REM that line in the startup file.  If it's still attached to something, you have to leave it.

I would install the new card and then find out what slot it's in and add the correct entry for it.  Count over from this card in the PCI slots (load pedge.ham slot=1) and you will know which slot the new controller is in.  (It will have to be slot 2, 3, 4, etc.)

Then add this line:
Load aic78u2.ham slot=X   (where X is the position it's in).



Read the following from this source:
http://www.novell.com/support/search.do?cmd=displayKC&docType=kc&externalId=10059012&sliceId=&docTypeID=DT_TID_1_1&dialogID=125493146&stateId=0%200%20125489369

SLOT=
This option is mandatory for the HAM drivers. In addition, you have to load the HAM driver once for each SCSI controller present in your server, each time with a different SLOT= parameter. For the AIC7870.DSK driver v4.10 or later, the SLOT= parameter is optional. If you specify the SLOT= parameter, you have to load the driver once for each controller in your system. If you omit the SLOT= parameter, loading the driver a single time will handle all controllers supported by this driver.
 

The existing controller is connected to the hard disks. So I can put a second load aic78u2.ham slot=x statement? How is the number 10008 determined in the first statement?


Thanks

I never understood how they came up with those weird numbers on the BUILT-IN cards, but don't worry about it, just get the slot number correct for the new PCI card and OBVIOUSLY don't remove the line to load for the 10008 slot.

I can't remember if it was Netware 5 or 6 but at some point, if you loaded one instance of the driver, it would load for any other slots automatically, so the line may be unnecessary, but add it anyway - won't hurt anything.  It would just come back and say something like "already loaded" or similar.

So if the new card is in slot 2, what would the entry be?

Thanks  

Load aic78u2.ham slot=2

Come on man - you're being too careful.  It won't blow up the system if you were wrong.

Thanks, will give it a try tonight

Let us know if it blows up your system (kidding!!).  Would like to know if it fixes your issue.  Backup is important to keeping your job.

Will do

Well , I finnaly got to add the card, booted up and once BackupExec loaded I got all kinds of errors! Errors such as:

"Install found the following hardware but was unable to find a maching driver:
PCI Disk controller 8086.7111.0000.0000.01"

"AIC78U2.HAM did not load. Control will be switched to the system console screen, where you may see the error"

"The tape hardware failed to initialize. Would you like to try to initialize the tape hardware again? "

Note: all I did was add the card and connect the drive. Did not modify STARTUP.NCF.  
 

Why didn't you modify the startup.ncf BEFORE you shut it down prior to adding the card??

Go ahead, make the changes, turn off the server, DISCONNECT the tape drive, boot it up and see if the driver is loaded.

If so, shut it down, reattach the tape drive, boot it up.


OR, right now, with the server running, type the following:
load aic78u2.ham slot=2 and see if it loads successfully.