[comp.sys.att] 6386 300Mb Hard Disk

lawrence@smcnet.smc.edu (Lawrence Roney, Telecomm Dept) (09/22/90)

We just bought a Micropolis 1558-15 300Mbyte hard disk for our 6386E Unix
box.  I'm installing it as a second hard disk in the system.  The unit came
with a 135Mbyte.  I set the drive type in the system's CMOS config RAM to 
31--304 Mbyte.  I then ran the Low Level Format program that comes with the
6386.  It finds what looks to be the proper hard disk and proceeds to format
the 15 heads and 1221 cylinders.  Everything is going fine so far.  I then
reboot the Unix system off of the existing HDU and run the Unix FDISK program
to set up a partition on the new HDU (/dev/rdsk/1s0)

FDISK only sees 814 cylinders.   Why????  

I continued to partition the disk and even ran mkfs and mounted the new 
file system.  Re-booting the system only reported the file system to be
150Mbytes big.  I think the problem is in the FDISK or Low Level Formatter
programs.  Am I close???  Anyone have any ideas????

P.S.  The Micropolis disk was bought from Micropolis direct, not from AT&T.
-- 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lawrence Roney - Santa Monica College Telecommunications Department   
N6YFN 		 1900 Pico Blvd., Santa Monica, CA 90405-1628
Mail   UUCP: uunet!ucla-cs!smcnet!lawrence   Internet: lawrence@smcnet.smc.edu  

ted@eslvcr.wimsey.bc.ca (Ted Powell) (09/23/90)

In article <1990Sep22.050826.22895@smcnet.smc.edu> lawrence@smcnet.smc.edu (Lawrence Roney, Telecomm Dept) writes:
>We just bought a Micropolis 1558-15 300Mbyte hard disk for our 6386E Unix
>box.  I'm installing it as a second hard disk in the system.  The unit came
>with a 135Mbyte.  I set the drive type in the system's CMOS config RAM to 
>31--304 Mbyte.  I then ran the Low Level Format program that comes with the
>6386.  It finds what looks to be the proper hard disk and proceeds to format
>the 15 heads and 1221 cylinders.  Everything is going fine so far.  I then
>reboot the Unix system off of the existing HDU and run the Unix FDISK program
>to set up a partition on the new HDU (/dev/rdsk/1s0)
>
>FDISK only sees 814 cylinders.   Why????  

This is the correct number of cylinders for disk type 31.
You don't say what type your hard disk controller is. If it is a
WD 1007A-WAH or WD 1007A-WA2, then removing jumper W8 will tell it to
fake your 1221-cylinder, 34-sector disk as an 814-cylinder disk with
some larger number of sectors per track.

At least as of rev 1.14, the ROM BIOS is unable to handle more than about
1023 cylinders; hence the kludge.

I've installed three of these drives in 16mHz 6386's (the original ones
manufactured by Olivetti) with no problems. This was, however, with the
drive being the only one in the machine. I don't know what removing W8
would do to your first (135mb) drive. Perhaps they are separately
configurable, in which case W8 is for the first drive.

If you haven't already, you also need to remove W3 to disable the PROM
that's on the controller, and you need to have BIOS 1.14 or later.

Send mail if the above doesn't get you going.  Good luck!

-- 
ted@eslvcr.wimsey.bc.ca   ...!ubc-cs!van-bc!eslvcr!ted    (Ted Powell)

wtm@uhura.neoucom.EDU (Bill Mayhew) (09/23/90)

I've had success with installing a large hard disk (Priam 330 meg)
as Unit 0 on my home-made 33 MHz 386 mahcine.  I run DOS 3.3 and
AT&T Unix 3.2.1.  One odditiy is that DOS has to be in the first
partition.  I have 30 megs of DOS and 300 megs of Unix.  I let the
install program partition the Unix side on its own, and it broke
the disk into root, usr and usr2, all of which are less than 150
megs hmmm...

You do indeed need to remove jumper W8 on either the 1006 or 1007
controller.  If you  are using more than 36 sectors per track, the
1007 controller is needed to handle the 15 megabit/sec data rate.

I didn't use the AT&T customer diagnostic disk because it didn't
recognize the parameters passed back by the Priam drive.  I have
the 1007-V-SE2 controller that has the floppy port and ROM.  The
ROM has a formatter at c800:5 that sets the CMOS and formats the
drive.  The on-screen menu is self-explanatory.  The 1007 sets the
HDU type to a dummy value of 1, which looks strange but works
correctly (The controller retrieves the parameters by querrying the
ESDI drive).

If you have the 1006 or 1007 without on-board ROM, you can call
Western Digital at 800-832-4778, go through the voice mail maze and
have them send you a floppy disk with WDFORMAT on it.  WD is very
good about sending out free documentation and is usually pretty
helpful on the phone.  You can also download WDFORMAT from their
support BBS at 714-756-8176.  If you call, have WD send you the
installation and Technicala Reference Manuals for your controller;
they're pretty interesting and useful.


==Bill==
-- 
Bill Mayhew      NEOUCOM Computer Services Department
Rootstown, OH  44272-9995  USA    phone: 216-325-2511
wtm@uhura.neoucom.edu   ....!uunet!aablue!neoucom!wtm
via internet: (140.220.001.001)

aland@informix.com (alan denney) (09/27/90)

In article <1990Sep22.050826.22895@smcnet.smc.edu> lawrence@smcnet.smc.edu (Lawrence Roney, Telecomm Dept) writes:
>We just bought a Micropolis 1558-15 300Mbyte hard disk for our 6386E Unix
>box.  I'm installing it as a second hard disk in the system.  The unit came
>with a 135Mbyte.  I set the drive type in the system's CMOS config RAM to 
>31--304 Mbyte.  I then ran the Low Level Format program that comes with the
>6386.  It finds what looks to be the proper hard disk and proceeds to format
>the 15 heads and 1221 cylinders.  Everything is going fine so far.  I then
>reboot the Unix system off of the existing HDU and run the Unix FDISK program
>to set up a partition on the new HDU (/dev/rdsk/1s0)
>FDISK only sees 814 cylinders.   Why????  

Why use fdisk directly?  Is there a reason why you don't want to
use diskadd(1)?  Since diskadd does some other magic beyond what
I've seen before, you may want to give it a try.  (I tried partitioning
and mkfs'ing by hand the first time around and had all sorts of
ugly problems.  Especially, watch out for labelit(1)!  It seems that
mkfs doesn't "take" until after labelit is run).

BTW, I'm assuming that you are using the WD1007A-WA2 ESDI controller.

>P.S.  The Micropolis disk was bought from Micropolis direct, not from AT&T.

Shouldn't matter.  Just make sure that you yank the terminating resistor.
The only apparent difference in the AT&T-shipped disks is the LLF.
(I had one of the 300MB drives DOA, and they replaced it with one in
a Micropolis factory box.  Of course, it hadn't been LLFd.  Ugh. 
Call the hotline, wait a week for the LLF disks, which they
double-shipped anyway...)

--
Alan Denney # Informix # aland@informix.com # {pyramid|uunet}!infmx!aland

 "Out on the highway doing 98... radio's blastin', and he's tempting fate
  He swears he saw an angel in a black Corvette
  She was blowing him kisses through her cigarette         [Was (Not Was)]
  Boy's gone crazy;  it's not just a phase, he's one step over the line..."