[Info-vax] Odd tape drive behavior

[tadamsmar]

I bought a cheap used WangDAT 3900 tape drive of ebay.  I figured what have a got to lose? (Lots of wasted time is what.)

I tried to install it on a couple of 7.3-2 systems.  I was trying to use it as a replacement on one of the systems.

It shows up when I run SHOW DEV at the >>> boot prompt, but it does not show up when boot and run SHOW DEV MK at the system prompt.  At the boot prompt, it properly indentifies the make and model of the drive.

Any ideas.  All I can figure is there must be something marginal about the SCSI communications. Or maybe VMS does not support it?

It has a 50 pin SCSI connector. I tried it using an 50-72 pin adapter on one system, and then I tried it on another system that had a 50 pin bus cable so that no adapter was needed.