lamaster@ames.arc.nasa.gov (Hugh LaMaster) (03/29/89)
In article <913@atanasoff.cs.iastate.edu> heins@atanasoff.cs.iastate.edu (Leeland Heins) writes: >In article <88316@felix.UUCP> sparks@euler.berkeley.edu (Jay Sparks) writes: >to get the problem fixed. Seems the tc13 doesn't have any problems at all. I am looking for anyone with experience using the SC7003 and CDC 9773 disks under Ultrix (3.0, though 2.2 also relevant). The SC7003 is the Massbus emulation SBI controller. If anyone has done this, I would like to hear about their experience. Hugh LaMaster, m/s 233-9, UUCP ames!lamaster NASA Ames Research Center ARPA lamaster@ames.arc.nasa.gov Moffett Field, CA 94035 Phone: (415)694-6117
grr@cbmvax.UUCP (George Robbins) (03/29/89)
> I am looking for anyone with experience using the SC7003 and CDC 9773 disks > under Ultrix (3.0, though 2.2 also relevant). The SC7003 is the Massbus > emulation SBI controller. I just installed a couple of CDC Sabre 1.2Gbyte drives via an SC7003/V-master on our 785. There were some hassles, but nothing insurmountable. I had to patch hp.o a bit so that it would match up the drive parameters with one of the remapped drives that I wasn't using and to change the geometry information for that drive type to match the Sabre numbers. I also changed hpdata.c to provide a usable initial partition table. I also patched the old BSD/Ultrix 1.2 "format" program to format the drives. I am not sure if this format program is still included with the new "improved" installation procedure, but you did keep those old distribution media, right? We have CDC service here, and they service both Emulex and the CDC drives, though anything but VMS seems to be black magic to them. They were very helpful in resolving problems I had with a bad adapter board and screwed up cables. They also had the Emulex formatter package, but for some reason although it claimed to have formatted the drive, it didn't write out the bad sector file correctly. Probably operator error, but it didn't show up immediately and I only realized things were screwed proper only after laying committing my news spool to the minefield of bad spots. Ouch. After patching in the right numbers, the BSD formatter seemed to do a nice job, but I'd recommend buying the Emulex diagnostics/formatter since it will greatly reduce the uncertainty factor in getting the hardware working and the drive formatted before you have to throw in the Ultrix card. You might check with Emulex and see if they can provide a cookbook approach for Ultrix. I had to wing it because everything finally started to work on a Friday and I didn't realize quite how stupid BSD/Ultrix was about supporting random drives. It happens that /etc/disktab is pretty much for show, as the real values are hard- coded elsewhere... More information on demand, I guess... -- George Robbins - now working for, uucp: {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!grr but no way officially representing arpa: cbmvax!grr@uunet.uu.net Commodore, Engineering Department fone: 215-431-9255 (only by moonlite)
alo@kampi.hut.fi (Antti Louko) (03/30/89)
In article <6424@cbmvax.UUCP> grr@cbmvax.UUCP (George Robbins) writes: >We have CDC service here, and they service both Emulex and the CDC >drives, though anything but VMS seems to be black magic to them. They >were very helpful in resolving problems I had with a bad adapter board >and screwed up cables. They also had the Emulex formatter package, but >for some reason although it claimed to have formatted the drive, it >didn't write out the bad sector file correctly. Probably operator error, >but it didn't show up immediately and I only realized things were screwed >proper only after laying committing my news spool to the minefield of >bad spots. Ouch. A couple of years ago, we had similar experience with an Emulex-controller emulating MASSBUS-adapter. Support engineer told us that there are two bad sector files. DEC-MASSBUS-formatters write a so-called factory bad sector file. Users can add later more bad sectors into the user bad sector file. Emulex diagnostics seems to put bad sectors only into the user bad sector file. BSD (and apparently Ultrix, too) read only the factory bad sector file. I would be very surprised if VMS doesn't read both of them. Could someone with VMS-microfiches check this, please. I remember the user bad sector file was at the start of the next track or cylinder or something like that. I hope this helps.