jdm@gryphon.CTS.COM (John Mesiavech) (03/26/88)
A Question for the Net:
At the computer store where I now work, we are trying to put a system
together for a customer. This system includes a Bridgeboard, HardCard
on the IBM side, an A2090 on the Amiga side, extra drive, and an external
SCSI drive on the A2090. We are trying to use a Hyperdrive, which is
a Macintosh SE SCSI-compatable external hard drive that uses a
Seagate ST251N drive internally. We have the Hyperdrive set as
SCSI device one, and we have out Mountlists set with the Unit parameter
= 3, which according to the manual references the first device on the
external Mac SCSI bus. When we try to PREP the drive, the Amiga locks
up solidly, and the drive sits idle. The drive is correctly terminated,
and the drive itself is tested and known to work on a Macintosh.
The DB-25 connector on the back of the A2090 is supposed to be MAC
SCSI compatable, so does anyone out there know what's going wrong?
Any help on this would be appreciated! We'd like to get the system out
Monday for the gentleman.
John
(in no way officially representing the store).
--
0-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-> All disclaimers apply; I didn't write this <-=-=-=-=-=-0
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| "Sing us a song, you're the Piano Man | John Mesiavech |
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0-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-==-=-0jdow@pnet02.cts.com (Joanne Dow) (03/30/88)
Make sure that the reset pin on the drive is properly connected through on the
cabling you have. because of a peculiarity in the Mac OS most mac drives do
NOW
er NOT have that pin connected. That will cause many of them not to work on
most Amiga controllers.
<^_^>
UUCP: {hplabs!hp-sdd!crash, cadovax}!gryphon!pnet02!jdow
INET: jdow@pnet02.cts.commatt@elxsi.UUCP (Matt Shaver) (03/30/88)
In article <3006@gryphon.CTS.COM> jdm@gryphon.CTS.COM (John Mesiavech) writes: > > A Question for the Net: > > At the computer store where I now work, we are trying to put a system >together for a customer. This system includes a Bridgeboard, HardCard >on the IBM side, an A2090 on the Amiga side, extra drive, and an external >SCSI drive on the A2090. We are trying to use a Hyperdrive, which is >a Macintosh SE SCSI-compatable external hard drive that uses a >Seagate ST251N drive internally. We have the Hyperdrive set as >SCSI device one, and we have out Mountlists set with the Unit parameter >= 3, which according to the manual references the first device on the >external Mac SCSI bus. When we try to PREP the drive, the Amiga locks >up solidly, and the drive sits idle. The drive is correctly terminated, >and the drive itself is tested and known to work on a Macintosh. >The DB-25 connector on the back of the A2090 is supposed to be MAC >SCSI compatable, so does anyone out there know what's going wrong? > I am using an ST251N drive internal to the A2000. I have not had PREP hang up but have had some other problems which I can relate which may (or may not) help you. As far as I can tell the drive physically has: 4 heads 26 sectors per track 818 cylinders You would normally expect a drive of this conformation to have 104 sectors per cylinder. However if you divide the sectors per drive, 84254, by the number of cylinders, 818, you get 103, one less than you would expect. So when I indicated in the mountList that it had 4 heads and 26 sectors per track and 818 cylinders the format would hang around cylinder 811 or so because it was really addressing off the end of the drive. To get the most efficient use of the drive I tell the software the drive has: 4 heads 17 sectors per track 1239 cylinders This factors out to 84252 sectors which is only 2 short of the 84254 sectors per drive it is specified to have. The other problem I had was that I could never create a second partition on the drive. Whenever I tried to format the second partition I would get a GURU. I triple checked that the mountlist entries and entries to PREP did not have any overlaping cylinders but with no success. Luckally I did not really want to setup secondary partitions any way so I just left it with one 40M partion and have had no other problems except.... I did have a problem trying to use a non protected version of DPaint II on the hard disk. Whenever I tried to load non- lo-res pictures from the hard disk I would get a system requestor indicating that the volume got a read/ write error. Now this is the only time I have gotten any read/write errors from the hard disk and tried loading DPaint and the picture drawers at different stages of filling the hard disk and had the same problem. I have convinced myself that it is a problem in the way that DPaint is accessing the drive. Anyone else had this problem? Good luck and thanks, Matthew.
spencer@eris (Randal m. Spencer [RmS]) (03/31/88)
Recently on *comp.sys.amiga.tech* matt@elxsi.UUCP (Matt Shaver) wrote:
...In article <3006@gryphon.CTS.COM> jdm@gryphon.CTS.COM (John Mesiavech) writes:
...>external Mac SCSI bus. When we try to PREP the drive, the Amiga locks
...
...I am using an ST251N drive internal to the A2000. I have not had PREP hang
...
...I did have a problem trying to use a non protected version of DPaint II on
...the hard disk. Whenever I tried to load non- lo-res pictures from the hard
...disk I would get a system requestor indicating that the volume got a read/
...write error.
...
... Good luck and thanks, Matthew.
Ok, on the latter point, the problem you (and I) are having is a lack of the
new device driver for the 2090. I had this problem once before and AndyF.
sent me the new driver (thanks Capt'n), but when I added another driver the
lousy Install program copied over that file and stuck me with the original
one again. So, if I am using a high bitplane program (like CLImate), and
I access my SCSI drive (really a micropolis 40 meg ST506 drive attached to
an Adaptec SCSI <-> ST506 converter) I will get Read/Write errors. I am
looking for someone with the new driver, but I don't know where to get it
generally (other than direct from Commodore).
The other problem that I seem to have discovered is that if you have a drive
that is supposed to be a SCSI drive, but is really an ST506 attached to a
host adapter (like my Adaptec), you can't specify any bad blocks when using
prep. I had the drive already low-level formatted, and the Adaptec had
written a map of all the bad blocks already, so I just did high level
formating and all worked well. But I wonder what I would do to map out
the bad blocks if I hadn't owned the CLtd controller....
So to the first person, I suggest that you don't really have a SCSI drive,
but one hooked to an adapter (like all the SuperMac drives turn out to be
of this kind).
Randy
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Randy Spencer P.O. Box 4542 Berkeley CA 94704 (415)222-7595
spencer@mica.berkeley.edu I N F I N I T Y BBS: (415)222-9416
..ucbvax!mica!spencer s o f t w a r e AAA-WH1M
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-cmcmanis%pepper@Sun.COM (Chuck McManis) (03/31/88)
In article <759@elxsi.UUCP> matt@elxsi.UUCP (Matt Shaver) writes:
->I am using an ST251N drive internal to the A2000 ...
->
->As far as I can tell the drive physically has:
-> 4 heads
-> 26 sectors per track
-> 818 cylinders
Actually the Seagate is saving one sector per cylinder for bad block sparing
on that cylinder. The most effective entry in this case is
1 heads
103 sectors/track
818 cylinders
Which exactly uses your entire drive.
The same logic needs to be applied to the MiniScribe 8425 drive which has
17 sectors/track but on one cylinder is saves one for a bad block. Thus
you tell it it has 1 head with 67 sectors per track. It's all mumbo jumbo
to SCSI because the SCSI stuff is talking 'Logical' blocks anyway. It
doesn't know what a cylinder or head or track is, thats all internal.
--Chuck McManis
uucp: {anywhere}!sun!cmcmanis BIX: cmcmanis ARPAnet: cmcmanis@sun.com
These opinions are my own and no one elses, but you knew that didn't you.cs178abu@sdcc8.ucsd.EDU (John Schultz) (04/03/88)
In article <759@elxsi.UUCP> matt@elxsi.UUCP (Matt Shaver) writes: >As far as I can tell the drive physically has: > 4 heads > 26 sectors per track > 818 cylinders > We just installed a 2090 with an ST251 in our 2000 as: 6 Surfaces 17 BlocksPerTrack Total cylinders 0-819, or 820 It's partioned as four 10M partions, ~205 cylinders per part. The last partion is short because of AmigaDos' use of the first two cylinders. Anyway, the drive (knock on wood) works perfectly. As far as I know, the only differences between the 251, 251-1,251N are seek speed and/or interface (251-1: 28ms, 251N SCSI). So, change the number of heads to 6... That should fix it. John
lemke@hub.toronto.edu (R Lemke) (04/10/88)
In article <831@sdcc8.ucsd.EDU> cs178abu@sdcc8.ucsd.edu.UUCP (John Schultz) writes: >In article <759@elxsi.UUCP> matt@elxsi.UUCP (Matt Shaver) writes: >>As far as I can tell the drive physically has: >> 4 heads >> 26 sectors per track >> 818 cylinders >> > We just installed a 2090 with an ST251 in our 2000 as: > 6 Surfaces > 17 BlocksPerTrack > Total cylinders 0-819, or 820 > > It's partioned as four 10M partions, ~205 cylinders per part. The >last partion is short because of AmigaDos' use of the first two >cylinders. > Anyway, the drive (knock on wood) works perfectly. As far as I >know, the only differences between the 251, 251-1,251N are seek >speed and/or interface (251-1: 28ms, 251N SCSI). > > So, change the number of heads to 6... That should fix it. > > > John I have just recently installed an ST251N in my B2000 and discovered the the 251, 251R and 251N are *not* the same physical configuration. According to the booklet that comes with the drive: drive capacity heads cylinders max-blocks 251 42M 6 820 ? 251R 43M 4 820 ? 251N 43M ? ? 84,254 At first, I assumed that the 4 heads number was a typo. My final opinion though, is that the 251 has 6 heads and is formatted with 17 sectors per track; while the 251R and 251N each have 4 heads and are formatted with 26 sectors per track. Further, the max-blocks number for the 251N is about 10% smaller than 4 * 820 * 26, to allow for remapping of bad blocks. Format seems to hang when trying to format more than 84,254 blocks. I hope this info helps answer some nagging questions. It is the best that I could figure out. (Wouldn't it be nice if Seagate would just tell us what all the parameters are?) Jim -- Jim Lemke CSRI, University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada UUCP: {decvax,ihnp4,linus,utzoo,uw-beaver}!utcsri!uthub!lemke CSNET: lemke@hub.toronto.edu CDNNET: lemke@hub.toronto.cdn BITNET: lemke@hub.utoronto -- -- Jim Lemke CSRI, University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada UUCP: {decvax,ihnp4,linus,utzoo,uw-beaver}!utcsri!uthub!lemke CSNET: lemke@hub.toronto.edu