jeffery@sys.caltech.edu (Jeffery Cavallaro) (06/06/89)
I am having a problem getting a Xylogics 451 controller to control a Fujitsu M2372K (892Mb) and a Fujitsu M2351 (280Mb) at the same time. I can use either drive separately (formatting, booting, etc). The configuration is as follows: SUN-3/160 XY 451 drive 0: M2372K drive 1: M2351 SunOS 3.5 While autoconfiging during boot, the controller and each drive is reported, with the label information summary for each drive. Immediately after I get the following error messages: xy0 and xy1 are of the same type (0) but with different geometries xy1: cannot read label - From then on, xy1 is dead. Per usual, I get different stories depending on who I talk to. One SUN tech rep says that the 892Mb drives cannot be mixed. Xylogics says that there should be no problem. Does anyone have any ideas??? Thanks, Jeff. Oh, one more bit of info. xy0 may have been formatted with the 4.0 distribution, whereas xy1 was formatted with the 3.5 distribution. (The reason being that we downgraded from 4.0 to 3.5 for various reasons, and never reformatted). Could this cause the problem?
dupuy@cs.columbia.edu (06/21/89)
You problem is that the 451 controller can only deal with 4 types of disks
at once. It keeps track of each type by a number (from 0 to 3) which
corresponds to a particular geometry. The old Sun standalone diag
program, and the new Sun format program both assign disk types to numbers
in a fixed and arbitrary manner (i.e. M2351 -> 0, M2361 -> 3, etc.). Your
error message:
xy0 and xy1 are of the same type (0) but with different geometries
xy1: cannot read label
indicates that both have been assigned the type number 0. All you have to
do is to reassign one of them to use a different type number. With 4.0
format, this would be a fairly easy thing to do; all you would need would
be to cobble up the following entry for /etc/format.dat:
disk_type = "Fujitsu-M2372K" \
: ctlr = XY450 : fmt_time = 4 \
: ncyl = 743 : acyl = 2 : pcyl = 745 : nhead = 27 : nsect = 67 \
: rpm = 3600 : bpt = 40960 : bps = 600 : drive_type = 2
and relabel the disk using format (being sure to use the exact same
partitions as before). With 3.5, it's a bit trickier. You need to bring
up the standalone diag, and when it asks you the disk type, say (other).
It will then ask you a whole slew of questions, the answers to which are
in the above format.dat entry. Be sure to specify the same partitions as
before, and relabel the disk. After this, all your problems should cease.
Be sure to do a full backup of the disk before trying this, just in case.
@alexmoran@warbucks.ai.sri.com (Doug Moran) (06/22/89)
In Sun-Spots v8n38, dupuy@cs.columbia.edu suggests changing the disk disk type in /etc/format.dat and relabelling the drive. I had a similar problem several years ago (1985?) with the XY450. My memory is that at that time the drive type was not simply part of the label, but was part of the header on each sector. If my memory is correct and this is still the case, you will have to reformat the whole drive. Douglas B. Moran Artificial Intelligence Center Senior Computer Scientist SRI International (415) 859-6486 Menlo Park, CA 94025 Internet: moran@ai.sri.COM