Boot hangs on mpt0: failing to detect tape drive

[Andrew MacLeod]

Currently trying to install freebsd on a new ACER Altos R710 server.
Having problems on bootup where it seems not able to detect the Internal
Sony AIT-2 Turbo tape drive. System hangs at mpt0: [GIANT-LOCKED] for
five minutes then several messages like the following:
 
mpt0: Soft Reset Failed: ack timeout
mpt0: WARNING - Failed Hard Reset
mpt0: failed to reset device
mpt0: soft reset failed: device not running. 
IOcmpt: LSILogic 1030 Ultra4 adapter.....
 
When I disconnect the tape drive from the SCSI card system boots fine.
I am running Freebsd 6.0-Release with a slightly modified GENERIC Kernel
to enable SMP and PF. 
I am not a hardward expert but I will try to explain the setup of the
system as best I can. The server is a dual xeon with 5x73GB SCSI hard
discs which we have setup in a combination of RAID 1 for the operating
system and RAID 5 for the data. These run on an LSILogic 2 channel SCSI
card.  The system has an identical 2nd LSILogic SCSI card which the
vendor assured us was needed to run the Tape Drive. However the
Motherboard also has onboard SCSI support and the tape drive is
connected to this. The tape drive has a terminator attached. We have
attempted to attach the tape drive to both the secondary channel on the
primary SCSI card and both channels on the secondary one and the system
hangs on SCSI initialisation prior to reaching freebsd. We have had no
luck altering settings in the LSILogic configuration utility or in the
system BIOS.     
 
Any assistance would be much appreciated as my next step is to try an
alternate O/S to see if this is hardware or system related. 
 
Kind Regards
             Andrew
 
____________________________________________________________________
Andrew Macleod
Technical Manager
Centre for Electronic Commerce and Communications
University of Ballarat
Registered Provider Number 00103D
 
Suite 12A Greenhill Enterprise Centre
University Drv Mt Helen 3350
Tel: +61 3 5327 9315
Email: a.macleod at ballarat.edu.au