Hardware Installation

This tape backup application requires you to configure and install both hardware and software. The software installation is easy. You will be asked to login to a machine running Linux and copy the files from the distribution diskette to a hard disk using the tar command. If you have not learned how to do that yet, please investigate the concepts of logging in, disk file systems, and permissions. If you can login and do have permissions to copy files to a hard disk, you should be able to complete the software installation.

The hardware installation is a little more involved. You must understand the concepts of PC expansion slots and configuring hardware with shorting blocks. You must have a familiarity with the cards in your machine, know what values are already in use, and be able to change any that are in conflict. If you can take the cover off your PC, determine that an expansion slot is available, and work with controller card settings, you should be able to complete the hardware installation. You may have to reconfigure or remove other cards in your system, but that malady comes with the ISA bus territory.

Unpack the SCSI controller card and open up your machine. Determine what cards are already installed and what values they use for system resources in the following table.

                                         SCSI Controller
     Resource                        Factory Configured Value
   ___________________________________________________________

     io address                            0x330-0x333
     dma channel                                5
     irq line                                  11
     BIOS memory address                   DC000-DFFFF

The SCSI controller card's settings for io address, dma channel, and irq line, cannot be the same as any other card or any built-in feature on the machine's motherboard.

If you are installing more than one SCSI controller card, you must change the default bus values on one of the cards. Please note that the software in this kit does not rely on the SCSI controller card's BIOS. They may be disabled after the controller card has been configured if another card needs the BIOS memory addresses. Detailed instructions can be found in the SCSI controller installation manual.

If you are using revision C, CF, or CP of the Adaptec AHA-1540 card, you will find one switch block instead of the several rows of jumpers. The various settings are effected in software instead of hardware, although the intellectual challenge remains the same.

Unpack the Tandberg SCSI tape drive and identify the connectors on the face opposite the tape door. From left to right, on the 5.25" drives ( TDC 3820, 4120, 4220, 4222, SLR-5, MLR-1 ) you will see a white nylon connector with four large pins, a double row of ten small pins, and a double row of twenty five small pins. The four pin connector is for power. The fifty ( twenty five by two ) pin connector is for a SCSI ribbon cable. The remaining pins are for test and configuration. On the 3.5" form factor drive ( TDC 3500, 3700 ) the power connector and the SCSI connector are adjacent while the test and configuration pins are above.

Choose a SCSI id for the tape drive. The SCSI id is an arbitrary number from zero to seven. Only one physical device may use this number on a SCSI cable. SCSI controller cards are set to SCSI id seven at the factory; this leaves zero through six for your use. You may choose any remaining value, but the examples in this manual will use SCSI id zero.

SCSI ids on one cable do not conflict with the same ids on another cable. There is no conflict if two devices on two different SCSI buses use the same SCSI id. Each controller card can retain its factory configured SCSI id of seven without conflict.

A white label with black text spans the rear of the drive and indicates the meanings of the pins in the double row of ten. The SCSI id is set here. After choosing an appropriate SCSI id for the tape drive, set the id on the drive by inserting or removing shorting blocks. Count the pins carefully and note that in currently shipping drives, the SCSI id selection pins fall in the middle of the array.

    SCSI id zero             SCSI id one             SCSI id three
 __________________       ___________________      ___________________

             2 1 0                    2 1 0                    2 1 0
 . . . . . . . . . .      . . . . . . . . . .      . . . . . . . . . . 
 . . . . . . . . . .      . . . . . . . . . .      . . . . . . . . . . 
 no shorting blocks                       X                      X X

X means insert a shorting block so that the upper and lower pins in the pair are connected.