eing@cosmo.UUCP (Hubert Eing/Hubert Eing Textilveredlung) (12/22/89)
I have added a 2nd drive (Fujitsu M2614S SCSI 3 1/2") and a
Cipher SCSI Streamer ST150S to a Compaq 386/20. The Controller is
Adaptec 1542 A.
1 st. Question : The installation of the drive was quite easy, no
formatting errors nor verifying errors, no problems with making
file systems and no problem with mounting the file systems.
But when I copied some files to the drive, I got sometimes the
error message :
*** Uncorrectable data error in sector ***
or, when the controller is configured for no auto-sense :
*** Unknown error in sector ... ***.
Are there some explanations for this behaviour ? Do I have to set
the jumpers on the Adaptec other than the default ?
2 nd. Question : I have not installed the Cipher yet. Are there some
known problems with this streamer ?
Thanks for help in advance
Paul Abbingneese@adaptex.UUCP (12/22/89)
>I have added a 2nd drive (Fujitsu M2614S SCSI 3 1/2") and a >Cipher SCSI Streamer ST150S to a Compaq 386/20. The Controller is >Adaptec 1542 A. >1 st. Question : The installation of the drive was quite easy, no >formatting errors nor verifying errors, no problems with making >file systems and no problem with mounting the file systems. >But when I copied some files to the drive, I got sometimes the >error message : > *** Uncorrectable data error in sector *** >or, when the controller is configured for no auto-sense : > *** Unknown error in sector ... ***. >Are there some explanations for this behaviour ? Do I have to set >the jumpers on the Adaptec other than the default ? You not have to change any of the default jumpers. The only jumper you may want to install is the jumper on J1 pin pair 1. This will allow synchronous negotiation to occur. By disabling the auto-sense feature, the driver looses the ability to know what error occurred on for a given command descriptor block. An uncorrectable data error, if it is a true representation of the SCSI error returned from the device, is sense key 3 error code 0x11. This indicates a hard media error. Although I have seen this error from devices before and it was also caused by early termination of the data transfer or a SCSI bus phase change to early. If the error detecting part of the driver is looking for the host adapter status and it got a 0 value, then the 1540 did not detect an illegal bus phase change or any other bus error. That does not rule out what happened in the drive controller. The drive obviously reported the error or you would not have gotten the message. You can grab the SCSI.EXE and SCSICNTL.EXE programs off of adaptex. They may be of help. The SCSI.EXE is a diagnostic and the SCSICNTL.EXE is a program that allows you to see the firmware revision of a device and to reprogram the SCSI device to fit your needs. I haven't used the Fujitsu drives, so I don't know anything about them. >2 nd. Question : I have not installed the Cipher yet. Are there some >known problems with this streamer ? I have had a Cipher ST150S2 on 'adaptex' since April 89. No problems with this drive as long as you have firmware version G76R or later. The versions of firmware before this had a bug in it. After a rewind command was sent and was not followed by an unload command the drive would sometimes refused to operate after that. The only way to recver from this was issue a hard SCSI bus reset. Not a good thing to do while a system is running as that would also reset the all the other devices on the bus. I beleive that Cipher is currently shipping version G76T. That is the version of firmware I have on my drive and I have had absolutely no problems with it. Roy Neese Adaptec Central Field Applications Engineer UUCP @ {texbell,attctc}!cpe!adaptex!neese merch!adaptex!neese uunet!swbatl!texbell!merch!adaptex!neese