On Fri, 15 Jan 1999, Dan Hollis wrote:
> Anyone used the Sony SuperStation or Aiwa Bolt drives with Linux yet?
Kinda off list, since the SuperStation/Bolt is an ATAPI device (well,
almost.. read on)..
The company I work for bought one, and after much hardware wrangling one
of the programmers here came to the conclusion that it dosen't like to
coexist on an IDE chain with any other ATAPI (non-hard disk) device. It
also seems to have problems living on an UDMA (or other accelerated IDE)
channel. After many calls to various tech support reps trying to get it
working on a Win95 machine, a tech support representative admitted this
much to us: the drive has a "broken ATAPI implementation" (reps words).
Not being an expert in IDE/ATAPI, I have no idea what this means, other
than the drive we had was returned to vendor (CompUSA) and a bright, shiny
new Ditto MAX was purchased in its stead. I would also assume that if
what this representative said about the drive is true it probably isn't a
good purchase, especially for a Linux machine: it is doubtful that it
will ever work right on a Linux box (unless certain "workarounds" are
implemented in the ATAPI tape parts of the kernel).
-Chris
