ewiles@netxdev.DHL.COM (Edwin Wiles) (11/10/89)
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Help!
A while back one of our hard drives bit the dust. We replaced it with a
smaller hard drive as an interim measure. Now that we have the time to
muck about with installing a 300 MB hard drive (Micropolous 382 with an
Adaptec ACB-2322 controller) we find ourselves running into some outrageous
problems.
We couldn't just put the drive in, because the Micropolous 382 is not
compatible with the controller cards that we are currently using. So before
taking a chance with our main system we decided to get the drive and controller
running on one of our test systems (an ALR ACCESS 386 B) before we moved it
over to our main machine. (This turned out to be a very good idea.)
This is what happened:
The controller and HD were installed in a known working ALR 386.
- Controller settings were left as manufactured.
- Instructions were followed in the Adaptec User Manual Flow Chart on
page 3-3.
On bringing the system up error messages came as expected:
Hard Disk Failure
Hard Disk Failure
Press F1 to continue.
Inserted Bootable MS-DOS Disk in FD and Press F1:
Booted
Inserted Phoenix BIOS Setup Disk in FD and ran SETUP:
Drive Type was set to Type 1
DEBUG was started up,
Invoked the Adaptec low-level format program.
Couldn't get it to format the drive (steps on page 3-8).
Error messages were:
Can not read drive parameters
Select mode failure
[or something similar]
We were prompted to enter the number of cylinders and heads. We entered 16
heads and 611 cylinders from information given to us in a letter from
Micropolous.
SYSTEM ERROR, SHUTDOWN, NEVER BOOT AGAIN:
Error messages appeared at this point and we could not continue. The
system was shut down. At this point the ALR 386 ceased to function; not
only would the system not work with the HD, it wouldn't even boot from the
floppy!
We have been unable to boot from any diskette using the new Adaptec
controller in any other working system we try. We also tried various
jumper settings on the Adaptec board to turn Bus Wait on and off, to
disable/enable BIOS.... finally returning it to manufacturers settings when
no floppy in any system we tried would boot with the new Adaptec controller
installed:
Diskette Read Failure.
We reset the CMOS back to default by unplugging the battery, letting it
drain, and then plugging it back in. No change.
We then performed tests to determine if the ALR 386 was broken:
- The new HD and controller would not boot from a floppy a second time
although all cables and floppy drives were swapped with known working
parts. (We had three varieties of bootable floppies to try, WYSE,
Phoenix, and DOS)
- The old hardware was restored and would neither boot from a floppy
nor the hard drive.
- Hardware from another known working PC (floppy drive, hard disk,
controller and cables) was installed in the problem ALR which still
would not boot from a floppy or the hard drive.
- That same hardware when returned to its original host booted without
any problems from both the floppy and hard drive.
(Yep, it's broken now!)
We also performed tests to determine if the Adaptec controller was bad:
- A known working ALR 386 was borrowed and the Adaptec controller card
and Micropolous disk were installed: The error message -- Diskette
Read Failure -- was obtained when attempting to boot from any of our
three bootable disks.
- The original HD and controller were restored to the borrowed ALR 386.
That system booted from floppy and hard drive without complaint.
(Umm Humm, the controller's broken too!)
Our Questions:
Did we do something wrong with the installation?
Are the three pieces of hardware basically incompatible?
Does anyone else have this sort of setup running?
(ALR ACCESS 386 B, Micropolous 382, Adaptec ACB-2322 controller)
If so, were there any special things you had to do to get it to work?
Is there information missing from the above which would help you to figure
out what went wrong?
[ PLEASE! Send your mail to the following address. Mail to ]
[ the 'news' machine (the machine this was posted from) is ]
[ very unreliable! ]
[ ...!hadron!netex!elw ]
"Who?... Me?... WHAT opinions?!?" | Edwin Wiles
Schedule: (n.) An ever changing nightmare. | NetExpress Comm., Inc.
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