help getting SCSI CD burner running in Tiger?

Hi. Thanks in advance for your help.

I recently upgraded my trusty old PCI-bus ("Yikes") G4 to Tiger. The old girl just keeps on going! So far everything is great except I can't get my PlexWriter 12/4/32 external CD burner to work. I don't want to junk it b/c it is really a super reliable burner.

Now the Plextor drives come with auto termination and that had been working fine up thru 10.2.8. But I read somewhere that Tiger is finicky about SCSI bus termination so I wasn't surprised when the machine wouldn't fully boot when the burner was on (or under some circumstances it would boot and then require a restart after a minute or so).

So today I picked up a passive terminator and tried that. It's worse, an earlier hang than I've yet seen. Ay caramba! So, the first question: do I need an active terminator?

Some particulars: I do have the most recent firmware for the burner. It runs on a SCSI bus controller in a PCI slot. It's HD 50-pin SCSI if that matters.

The obvious questions I come to are: active terminator as opposed to passive? Or is the problem with the PCI/SCSI controller?

Any thoughts are most welcome. I will gladly provide any relevant details. Thanks again.

Hi there and welcome !

It's been a while since I've had a play with Voodoo SCSI chains ;-)

I wouldn't expect any harm to come from using an Active Terminator...

I'll have a dig around and see what I can come up with !

regards

Ric

Thanks for your help, or at least attempted help. I'll definitely trade up from passive to an active terminator on Monday, seems like the next thing to try.

I do have open Firewire. I wonder if a FW>SCSI adapter might work when the PCI>SCSI doesn't. But I don't want to waste too much money trying every kind of adapter if the real problem is just that Tiger hates SCSI.

I swear, if this burner weren't so incredibly reliable I'd just Craigslist the thing and get a FW replacement. But I'd hate to ditch a nice Plextor drive without making every effort to keep it running.

I'm looking forward to seeing if you can come up with any leads. Thanks again.

Hi there,

how did the Active terminator work ?

regards

Ric