stukenborg@dg-rtp.dg.com (05/31/90)
Has anyone had any luck installing a Micropolis 1578-15 (380MB) drive on a Sparcstation 1+? I have brought up the machine diskless, but I can not get "format" to successfully format the virgin disk. No matter what disk geometry parameters I give, I always get errors when it writes the backup label. For example: Number of cylinders: 1200 Alternate cylinders: 2 Number of heads: 15 Sectors/track: 35 The SCSI format seems to proceed normally, but when (I assume) "format" tries to label the disk, the following warnings are printed. Block 631016 (1201/14/1), Fatal non-media error (illegal request) Warning: error writing backup label. Block 631018 (1201/14/3), Fatal non-media error (illegal request) Warning: error writing backup label. Block 631020 (1201/14/5), Fatal non-media error (illegal request) Warning: error writing backup label. Block 631022 (1201/14/7), Fatal non-media error (illegal request) Warning: error writing backup label. Block 631024 (1201/14/9), Fatal non-media error (illegal request) Warning: error writing backup label. Label failed. Any insight you could give would be very much appreciated. Steve Stukenborg Data General Corporation 62 Alexander Drive stukenborg@dg-rtp.dg.com Research Triangle Park, NC 27709 ...!mcnc!rti!xyzzy!stukenborg
chris@com50.c2s.mn.org (Chris Johnson) (06/08/90)
In article <8354@brazos.Rice.edu> xyzzy!stukenborg@dg-rtp.dg.com writes: >X-Sun-Spots-Digest: Volume 9, Issue 192, message 4 > >Has anyone had any luck installing a Micropolis 1578-15 (380MB) drive on a >Sparcstation 1+? I have brought up the machine diskless, but I can not >get "format" to successfully format the virgin disk. No matter what disk >geometry parameters I give, I always get errors when it writes the backup >label. >Block 631024 (1201/14/9), Fatal non-media error (illegal request) >Warning: error writing backup label. >Label failed. This error message is most likely resulting from trying to write to block numbers beyond the end of the disk. That is, the block number is out of range. My bet is that your configuration is bad. When you boot up with an unformatted disk attached and configured, the boot messages include the results from a SCSI Inquiry and SCSI Read Capacity command for the drive. This will tell you how many blocks total you have. Use the Unix program "factor" to factor the total number of blocks to the least common denominators. (You remember your 7th grade math, don't you?) Pick combinations of those factors that produce "nice" values for cylinder, sectors per track and tracks per cylinder. If that's not possible, factor the total number minus 1, 2, 3, etc. until you can. Use those numbers. It doesn't matter if they match reality. Good luck. ...Chris Johnson chris@c2s.mn.org ..uunet!bungia!com50!chris Com Squared Systems, Inc. St. Paul, MN USA +1 612 452 9522