Unable to see real SCSI devices on a Mac host

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TvE
Space Cadet
Posts: 2
Joined: Sat Dec 04, 2021 3:10 pm

Unable to see real SCSI devices on a Mac host

Post by TvE »

Hi all,
My first post :-)

I am trying to see real SCSI devices (eg. a HP C5638 tape streamer)

The host is a PowerMac G4 dual 1,25 GHz with two PCI SCSI controllers
The host OS (Mac OS X 10.4.11) is indeed capable of seeing my devices (eg. via System Profiler)

I am using "BasiliskII UB 20091004" (as that's what I could read was the latest and greatest for my OS/HW).
It's configured as described in this fine guide: https://www.emaculation.com/doku.php/ba ... _osx_setup

Using "SCSI Probe 4.3" I am only ever able to see one host (SCSI ID 0 = Quadra 900)

In the BasilikIIGUI I see a tab named SCSI, but I have not been able to find any documentation with details regarding what i can use that for!
I presume it's to map devices from the host to be virtually attached using the SCSI ID 0-6 (eg to be populated with /dev/scsiX/bla… <- bit this does not exist in OS X - I'm not sure how these devices are mappen, like /dev/disk0 etc)

Questions
  • Are SCSI devices supposed to be visible "transparent" in Basilik? (this seems to not be the case)
  • Can I map a SCSI device by configuring the SCSI ID <x> in the SCSI tab with something (what should that be?
  • Is SCSI HW access un-supported in the Mac build of Basilikand I must use build 142 on Windows (I see many references to that build supporting SCSI, but it's on windows - I would think that the best support would be on a Mac host...
The real objective
Is for me to restore two backups I made in 1996 using Retrospect (version 3 or 4) as I want to see what the younger me actually backed up :-)
I have all the HW (SCSI controllers, PowerPC , tape streamer), but using OS X (with Retrospect 6.1) I am unable to read the contents of the tape - must likely because Retrospect 6 (from 2005) is not backward compatible with Retrospect v3 (from 1995) that I presume I used for my backup at that time…
Retrospect 6 DOES revolt the correct name of the tape, which makes me think that it must be a SW compatibility issue I am facing!
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Ronald P. Regensburg
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Posts: 7821
Joined: Thu Feb 09, 2006 10:24 pm
Location: Amsterdam, Netherlands

Re: Unable to see real SCSI devices on a Mac host

Post by Ronald P. Regensburg »

BasiliskII for MacOSX/OSX/macOS cannot see, nor access, SCSI devices on the host. The feature was never implemented. The SCSI settings in the GUI are not functional.

Also, I doubt there is a way to handle taped backups in BasiliskII. BasiliskII works with disk drives (or disk images).

Indeed, the (very) old 142 version of BasiliskII for Windows can handle SCSI. That feature is not available in later versions for Windows.
TvE
Space Cadet
Posts: 2
Joined: Sat Dec 04, 2021 3:10 pm

Re: Unable to see real SCSI devices on a Mac host

Post by TvE »

Thanks for clarifying (despite the negative answer :-)
For handling the backup I see no problem as it's the job for Retrospect, all I needed was to get access to the SCSI device…
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