Hi,

I am trying to get two SCSI tape streamers to work, QIC-150 and DAT.
Having installed the hardware I got all to work under Windows 2000.
Debian Linux installed nicely on IDE drives with graphics and all,
but the tape-drives and the SCSI card does not seem to be accessible.
My objective is to save some old tapes to newer formats.
I am new to Linux but have been working with many UNIX versions as a programmer for some ten years from the late 80s on.

Questions:
Which kernel driver is needed for AHA-1542CF ?
How do I know it is loaded and how do I load it ?
How are device created for my tape drives?
Any pointer to the friendly manual?

Installation details:
Linux debian 2.6.18-6-686 #1 SMP Fri Dec 12 16:48:28 UTC 2008 i686 GNU/Linux

Other stuff:
CPU 500 MHz PIII, 512 MB RAM
2 IDE harddrives, 1 IDE CD/DVD

The Adaptec AHA-1542CF SCSI card on the ISA bus does not show
IRQ 11, DMA 5, I/O port 330H

SCSI devices:
ID 5: Archive_Python_25501-XXX -> DAT tape streamer
ID 6: WANGTEK_5150ES_SCSI_FA18 -> QIC-150 tape streamer
ID 7: AHA-1540CF/1542CF -> SCSI controller, ISA bus

lspci:
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 440BX/ZX/DX - 82443BX/ZX/DX Host bridge (rev 02)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 440BX/ZX/DX - 82443BX/ZX/DX AGP bridge (rev 02)
00:07.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 ISA (rev 02)
00:07.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 IDE (rev 01)
00:07.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 USB (rev 01)
00:07.3 Bridge: Intel Corporation 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 ACPI (rev 02)
00:0c.0 Multimedia audio controller: Ensoniq ES1371 [AudioPCI-97] (rev 02)
00:0e.0 Ethernet controller: Lite-On Communications Inc LNE100TX (rev 20)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc 3D Rage Pro AGP 1X/2X (rev 5c)

Thanks in advance

Welcome to LinuxQuestions
Since the SCSI controller is an ISA card it will not show up in the output of the lspci command.
The module is aha1542 and if loaded will be displayed in the output of the lsmod command. You also need the SCSI subsystem modules scsi_mod and st.

modprobe 1542 might work or I would add the boot option aha1542=0x330,5,11 to the boot loader. Edit the /boot/grub/menu.lst and add the option to the the end of the line that starts with kernel.

However, I do not know if support is still included.

I have a 1/4" cartridge SCSI drive you may have if you want it -- drive and a load of tapes.

I'll send it AS-IS and Your only cost is the shipping.

~~~ 0;-D