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From: grog@lemis.de
Message-Id: <199701271647.RAA12171@freebie.lemis.de>
Subject: Re: Firmware upgrade for Archive/Conner/Seagate 4584NP/4586NP
In-Reply-To: <199701231624.LAA26549@copper.ucs.indiana.edu> from "Michael L. Squires" at "Jan 23, 97 11:24:16 am"
To: mikes@copper.ucs.indiana.edu (Michael L. Squires)
Date: Mon, 27 Jan 1997 17:47:38 +0100 (MET)
Cc: questions@FreeBSD.org (FreeBSD Questions)
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Reply-to: grog@lemis.de (Greg Lehey)
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Michael L. Squires writes:
> An upgrade to the firmware for these drives (which is supposed to be
> done by the vendor, but was not done on the drives we got from
> Corporate Systems Center) is available free from Seagate if you
> cry a lot.  The upgrade is in the form of a tape which automatically
> upgrades the firmware, and works in both the 4584NP and 4586NP (DDS1 and
> DDS2, respectively).

Thanks for the information.  Do you have anything closer?  I bought
one of these drives last month, and have had no trouble with it at
all, but it's nice to know where to get an update.

> The oddest problem was that these drives did not work properly (under
> MS Windows NT with ARCserve) until we turned off the IDE controllers.

Hmmm.  Is that a problem with the drive?  I'm running mine on a
machine with IDE and 2 SCSI controllers.

> (I realize NT is not FreeBSD, but a previous thread discussed the reliablility
> of these drives and I'm hoping the person who asked the question earlier
> can find this message, as well as anyone looking for the answer in the
> future).

That was probably me.  BTW, I'd be interested in the background of the
statement in  your message of 28 December:

  The changers as shipped work with FreeBSD (2.1.6; AHA 1740A BIOS rev
  1.35) but may be the source of catastrophic damage to mounted
  filesystems which occurs when a bad spot is found on the tape.

I believe that this is not possible unless there is a bug in the
restore software.  Even if everything goes wrong with the tape
hardware, the software should not damage the file system.  Can you
expand?

Greg