FAQs - Storage Devices
1. Daisy chaining 3rd parts drives
Our
devices are IEEE 1284.3 compliant, this means that we fully support daisy
chaining with any other compliant device. Many other products on the market
are not, such as the ZIP drive. According to IOMEGA you cannot even connect
two ZIP drives together.
2. Connecting other Part II Research Products
You
can connect up to 8 SCSI cables together daisy chained with up to 7 devices
on each. This would give you 56 devices. The only problem is that there
are not enough letters in the alphabet to accommodate all those drives.
For IDE/ATAPI you can have 7 adapters and 2 drives per adapter for a total
of 14 drives together.
You can daisy chain IDE and ATAPI either on the same Bus or on two separate
units, But you cannot mix SCSI with ATAPI/IDE.
3. Speed issues
Apart from the parallel port type, the following factors have a direct influence on the performance of the parallel port.
CPU: The CPU type and clock speed have a direct bearing on the performance of the parallel ports. ISA bus clock speed: The higher the speed, the better is the performance.
I/O recovery time: The l/O recovery settings affect the parallel port performance. The lower the recovery time the better is the performance.
ISA
bus clock speed and l/O recovery settings can be modified on some computer
systems. However. we suggest that you do not modify any of these settings
without proper technical guidance.
4. Driver not installed
Things to try if you get this error message.
Power down the entire system including the drive and re-start. Disconnect any printers connected to the pass-thru connector. If the customer installed the drive In the enclosure, verify the connections are correct Most problems are related to timing issues. Refer to the Readme files for switch options.
5. Drive Too Slow
This
only appears on very old IDE drives that are slow to spin up. If you re-boot
the system it will usually come up.
6. System won't power on
On
occasion we have seen an interaction between our external units and certain
Desktop computers. What happens is the computer will not turn on as long
as the external drive is connected. This IS very RARE! But can happen.
We think the problem is with some power supplies, the sense the voltage
on the bus from the external drive and will not turn on There is currently
no solution for the problem. Again this is RARE!
7. Printers
Most
printers can work off of our pass-thru port.
8. SCSI Termination
The
SCSI cable has Termination built in. Normally you need to terminate both
sides of the cable but since the termination resistors are so close to
the device you may find that the product works better if you do not add
a external terminator.
9. ADAPTEC Compatibility
The
Windows 95 and NT drivers are 100% compatible with the ASPI 32 specification
from
10. "After installing the Windows NT driver, a full screen message appears with some columns of numbers. The only way to recover is to power down and power up the system"
T1.This is probably due to some malfunction in your Windows NT system due to a driver. First, detach the parallel port unit from the system and power up again and see if Windows NT boots up. If it does, then go to step T2. If not, the problem is with some other hardware installed in your system. Repeat the same process for each hardware component added.
T2.The problem you are facing may have to do with the peculiarity of the printer port you are using. Try the options in the following order until the problem goes away.
T2.1 The N option. Slows down the printer port accesses
T2.2 The N /SF=9 option. Slows down the printer port accesses along with not doing burst mode accesses
T2.3 The /U /SF=9 option. Drop down to nibble mode of operation
T2.3 The /N. Do not use interrupts.
T2.4 The /I=xx where xx is either 05, 07, 10 or any IRQ number assigned to the parallel port. If any of these options do not solve the problem, go to step T3.
T3.The
drivers are updated periodically to provide optimum performance. Contact
your hardware manufacturer for the latest version of the software if the
above mentioned attempts are not successful.
11. "After installing an IDE Hard drive on the parallel port, a drive letter is not getting assigned to the parallel port drive. Consequently, it appears as if the parallel port device has not been detected".
T4.This may be due to the Start Value assigned for the SCSIDISK.SYS driver which should be 1 (it is set to 4 in some installations). Follow the step- by - step procedure listed below to modify this setting:
To modify parameters use the Registry Editor program found in the Administrative Tools Group in the application Window NT Diagnostics under Tools:
From Program Manager double click on Administrative Tools From Administrative Tools double click on Windows NT Diagnostics. In "Windows NT Diagnostics' click on Tools Select Registry Editor Highlight the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE on Local Machine window. Click on System Click on CurrentControlSet Click on Services
Go down the list of device drivers and select SCSIDISK.
On the right side the information should be
DependOnGroup: REG_MULTI_SZ: SCSI Miniport
ErrorControl: REG_DWORD: 0
Group: REG_SZ: SCSI Class
Start:REG_DWORD: 0x4
Type: REG_3WORD 0x1Double Click on the Start: REG_DWORD entry. Set the value to 1.
Re-boot the system and check if the drive letter appears. If not go to T2 above