nowlin@ihuxy.ATT.COM (Jerry Nowlin) (01/22/88)
I have a 6300+ from AT&T and would like some additional mass storage for it. It already has one 20M internal hard disk. What I'd really like is to be able to stick a 40M hard disk card into a slot and have it peacefully coexist with the current hard disk. I boot UNIX off of the internal drive and only have 1.5M of hard disk space left for MS-DOS. I'd like to boot MS-DOS from a floppy and then be able to run on the hard disk card. I tried this with a PLUS 40M hard card and it was a real disaster. I couldn't even get the 6300+ to recognize the drive. Has anyone actually gotten a hard card to work in conjunction with an existing internal hard disk on a 6300+? I want to emphasize the + since I've seen this working on a plain 6300 but couldn't make the same disk card work on a +. I'd actually settle for any kind of hard disk that will work at the same time as the internal drive. I would appreciate it if people could respond with configurations that they KNOW work rather than suggestions of things to try. I'm interested in a tried and true solution, not "this might work" type scenarios. I'm almost desperate. I can no longer stand running MS-DOS off of a single floppy and using Simultask under UNIX is worse than MS-DOS with both arms tied behind it's back. Please email me your replys and I'll post any information I get back to this group in a week or so. Thanks. Jerry Nowlin (...!ihnp4!ihuxy!nowlin)
rms@gubba.SPDCC.COM (Rich Sands) (01/23/88)
In article <2350@ihuxy.ATT.COM> nowlin@ihuxy.ATT.COM (Jerry Nowlin) writes: > > I have a 6300+ from AT&T and would like some additional mass >storage for it. It already has one 20M internal hard disk. What I'd >really like is to be able to stick a 40M hard disk card into a slot and >have it peacefully coexist with the current hard disk. I boot UNIX off of >the internal drive and only have 1.5M of hard disk space left for MS-DOS. >I'd like to boot MS-DOS from a floppy and then be able to run on the hard >disk card. > >I tried this with a PLUS 40M hard card and it was a real disaster. I >couldn't even get the 6300+ to recognize the drive. Has anyone actually >gotten a hard card to work in conjunction with an existing internal hard >disk on a 6300+? I want to emphasize the + since I've seen this working on >a plain 6300 but couldn't make the same disk card work on a +. > >I'd actually settle for any kind of hard disk that will work at the same >time as the internal drive. I would appreciate it if people could respond >with configurations that they KNOW work rather than suggestions of things >to try. I'm interested in a tried and true solution, not "this might work" >type scenarios. > >I'm almost desperate. I can no longer stand running MS-DOS off of a single >floppy and using Simultask under UNIX is worse than MS-DOS with both arms >tied behind it's back. Please email me your replys and I'll post any >information I get back to this group in a week or so. Thanks. > >Jerry Nowlin >(...!ihnp4!ihuxy!nowlin) Jerry, I may be wrong, but I think you will have no luck getting any hard disk to work under UNIX unless it is controlled by the controller card that came with your machine. The UNIX device driver for hard disks does not have provisions for multiple controllers. I'm running my 6300+ with 2 Micropolis 1335 67MB formatted drives, and am not using the 20 MB drive that came with the system. The two drives are in a separate XT-style cabinet with their own power supply, and I replaced the 20 MB drive with a 360 KB floppy in the system unit. I run all of my DOS programs under Simultask, they all live in UNIX directories, and I have no complaints with it. Is there some reason that you don't like running DOS stuff under Simultask? Since others have asked this question on the net before, I thought I'd write a long explanation of how to upgrade the hard disks on a 6300+. It took a lot of trial and error, and calls to the hotline to finally figure all this out... AT&T sells a hard disk/tape expansion product, part number 37571, for a lot of money. It comes with separate controllers for the tape and disk, and new device drivers for UNIX that you install when you load the software. I have just the tape expansion, part number 37570. It comes in an external cabinet styled to match the 6300+. If you're handy though, you should be able to do it yourself, and save a bundle. I think you could get a configuration like mine for less than the AT&T product, if you shop carefully. The following drives are compatable with the 6300+ (this information straight out of the 6300+ Hardware Reference Manual from AT&T). Mfg. Model Size Cyls. Hds. Reduced Write Switches Current Cyl. Cyl. M X Y ??? PC6300 10MB 306 4 306 0 0 0 0 CDC Wren 30MB 697 5 697 0 0 0 1 CMI CM6426 20MB 640 4 256 256 0 1 0 Tandon 40MB 981 5 982 0xffff 0 1 1 Seagate ST4051 40MB 977 5 0xffff 500 1 0 0 Miniscribe 6086 67MB 1024 8 1025 512 1 0 1 Micropolis 1335 67MB 1024 8 1025 1024 1 1 0 Seagate ST225 20MB 612 4 613 256 1 1 1 For the switch settings: M = Dip switch on motherboard for drive 0 or 1. *NOTE*: a 0 means the switch is *ON*, a 1 means the switch is *OFF*. X,Y = High and low order option bits for drive 0 or drive 1 on the controller board. *NOTE*: a 0 means a jumper plug is *INSTALLED* across the two sidewise pins of bit X or Y of the controller's jumper pad number 1. A 1 means *NO* jumper installed. For drive 0: M = Motherboard DSW1, position 4 X = Controller jumper 1, bit position 1 Y = Controller jumper 1, bit position 0 For drive 1: M = Motherboard DSW1, position 3 X = Controller jumper 1, bit position 3 Y = Controller jumper 1, bit position 2 You can use any ST-506-type drive with the exact same number of cylinders, heads, and write precompensation requirements as one of the drives in this table. Nothing else will work. AT&T doesn't guarantee any of this by the way, and the hotline was a little hesitant about some of the drives listed above. I can tell you with assurance that the Micropolis drive works extremely well (and is so much faster than the piece of junk that comes with the system that you could die...) Please note the write precompensation - most mail-order ads don't list it, and it must be compatable. You'll have to check before ordering! Before installing your new drive, think whether you want it to be drive 0 or drive 1. Your root filesystem and swap are on drive 0, so in my opinion, you should use your fastest drive as drive 0. This means that you must have a good backup of your user data, since you will be moving it to the other drive! Not to mention that this sort of fiddling, though pretty safe if you know what you're doing, can result in data loss if you make mistakes. 1. Back up your internal hard drive before attempting this!!!!! 2. Mount the drive in a suitable external cabinet with power supply. 3. Select the drive types for both drive 0 and 1, according to the above switch settings. 4. Make sure that the drives themselves are properly jumpered or switched to be selected as either drive 0 or drive 1. 5. Build a second 20-pin data cable, and a 34-pin control cable with daisy chain tap for the internal drive. 6. Run one data cable from each of the 20-pin headers on the controller to the 20-pin edge connectors on the back of each drive, with the 20-pin header closest to the rear of the machine on the controller connected to drive 0, and the other to drive 1. 7. Connect the daisy chain cable to the 34-pin header on the controller, and the two 34-pin edge connectors on the drives, daisy-chain style. 8. Check and recheck cable installation and orientation, and switch settings. Button the whole thing up and run diagnostics. If things don't work, be prepared to take it apart and fiddle with swapping cables, drive select, etc. to isolate the problem, which will almost certainly be either a wrong switch setting or defective cable. You may have to do a low-level format of your new drive before running diagnostics. There is a bug in the ROM for the 6300+ that causes it to timeout on very long disk controller operations like formatting the whole drive, before it can finish. Try the low-level format on the diagnostics disk first, but if you bought a larger disk, this problem will probably get you, and you can either use something like SpeedStor's 'Format Cylinder Range' option and specify the whole disk (this uses individual controller commands to format each track), or call the Hotline for a procedure that directly writes the disk controller registers using the DOS DEBUG command to initiate the format. (If the hotline acts dumb, drop me a line and I'll help you figure out the right junk to type at DEBUG to format your disk.) When everything is working, reinstall UNIX from the Foundation Set disks. Follow the instructions in the Operations Manual for partitioning, formatting and making filesystems on your drive 1. Make sure you set up /etc/fstab to automatically check and mount your additional filesystems on bootup, and you're in business! Whew, that wasn't too hard now, was it! :-) -- rms Internet: rms@gubba.spdcc.com UUCP: {ihnp4,harvard,husc6,linus,ima,bbn,m2c}!spdcc!gubba!rms Compuserve: 71360,1067 BIX: richsands
berger@clio.las.uiuc.edu (01/25/88)
Most hard disk controllers will accomodate two drives. When you
installed the hard card, you were probably running two controllers
with the same I/O addresses and interrupt vectors. In general,
you should only need the appropriate cables to run a second hard
drive from most controllers.
Mike Berger
Center for Advanced Study
University of Illinois
berger@clio.las.uiuc.edu
{ihnp4 | convex | pur-ee}!uiucuxc!clio!berger