korfhage@CS.UCLA.EDU (11/10/88)
We have some Mac II's with CMS Pro-60II/i internal hard drives. We are
going to purchase some more Mac II's, and we are curious about the
possibility of rolling our own CMS equivalents.
I've looked at the CMS drives, which use the ST277N, and it appears to
be relatively simple. The drive has an embedded SCSI controller, so there
is no worry about that. You need a data cable and a power cable, which
should be easy to find or make. You also need some mounting hardware; I
have no idea where to find this. And last, but not least, you need
software, and pervious messages on this general topic have pointers to
SCSI drivers.
Is it as easy as it would seem? If anyone has already done this, I
would like to hear from you.
Thanks in advance.
Willard Korfhage
ARPA : korfhage@cs.ucla.edu
UUCP : {ucbvax,randvax,trwrb!trwspp,ism780}!ucla-cs!korfhagekm@cadre.dsl.PITTSBURGH.EDU (Ken Mitchum) (11/11/88)
Several people have used the ST277N with the Mac, and there were articles in Computer Shopper this fall regarding using this drive with the Mac using the "SF&I" format and installation program. Using the drive is fairly straigtforward - the main considerations are formatting it with an optimal interleave for the system you have, and deselecting the unit attention feature if you have an "old" ROM MacPlus. From my limited testing, proper interleave appears to be 2 for a MacII and 3 or 4 for a MacPlus. If anyone is interested, I can post the necessary mods to the resources in SF&I for the 277N. Ken Mitchum KY3B Decision Systems Labs University of Pittsburgh
kehr@felix.UUCP (Shirley Kehr) (11/13/88)
In article <17734@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU> korfhage@CS.UCLA.EDU (Willard Korfhage) writes: > > We have some Mac II's with CMS Pro-60II/i internal hard drives. We are >going to purchase some more Mac II's, and we are curious about the >possibility of rolling our own CMS equivalents. > I've looked at the CMS drives, which use the ST277N, and it appears to >be relatively simple. The drive has an embedded SCSI controller, so there >is no worry about that. You need a data cable and a power cable, which >should be easy to find or make. You also need some mounting hardware; I >have no idea where to find this. And last, but not least, you need >software, and pervious messages on this general topic have pointers to >SCSI drivers. > Is it as easy as it would seem? If anyone has already done this, I >would like to hear from you. > > Thanks in advance. > > Willard Korfhage > You might be interested in my experiences of the past week. I have a Mac II with this hard disk. For a couple months I ran System 6.0 with zero problems. I finally upgraded to 6.0.2 and then my problems started. I read on the net that if you upgraded the CMS drivers to 4.0 the drive was compatible with 6.0.2. After having trouble getting the drive to boot, I did update the drivers. That was the beginning of the end. For the week after upgrading to 6.0.2 I was having to clear parameter RAM (CMS's ZapPRAM program or just Command-Shift-Option while opening Control Panel) every day to get the system up. After installing the new drivers, even that didn't work. Some magical combination of things finally got the drive to boot Friday, so I cautiously double-clicked on a Word document. The icon disappeared (leaving the name on the desktop). I tried another that I didn't mind losing and the endless wristwatch came up. Powering down from the back, and then starting up from the CMS diskette was successful, but the CMS software could not format the drive. (I gave up this quickly because I had a full tape backup from 2 days ago, and that was what we had to do on an identical system 2 days ago.) Eventually, we had to call for service and the hardware tech did a low level format then formatted, initialized etc. the drive with Apple's\ HD SC Setup. I've restored the drive with the tape backup and I'm back in business. I guess it will be some time before we know how stable the drive is as an Apple vs CMS drive. The hardware tech has some program from Apple which he modified to make the drive work again. I feel more comfortable with this arrangement because we've had lots of CMS drive failures. This is the first time the solution has been to keep the drive in the machine. Usually the drive goes back to CMS for a week or so. The hardware tech thinks the drive is great, but the software is the real problem. I'd say you are on the right track, but I don't know how to tell you to start with that first low level format that he did. After that, use the Apple software perhaps. Shirley Kehr