[comp.unix.microport] Enix doesn't work with my 300 MB disk

mark@intek01.UUCP (Mark McWiggins) (01/20/89)

I finally got in Enix 3.2 from Everex yesterday, after about a 
month's wait.  I was designated a beta tester at the last minute, 
which salved a lot of my wound over this.

But I have a 380 MB ESDI drive (CDC 94186-383H + DTC 6280 controller)
with 1224 cylinders, and Enix only recognizes 1024.  Not only that, it
keeps bad a SECTOR table and not a bad TRACK table, and there can be
a lot of bad sectors on this size disk.  Far more than the 253 their
disk scanner utility program has room for, in fact; it shut down saying
"Can't use this disk; try starting over starting at another cylinder."

A guy I know here in Seattle has been running Enix 3.0 with the same
controller and a smaller disk for several months, and reports being
very happy with it.  And the tech support guy I spoke with said they'd
patch this problem at some point.  It could well be  fine product at
some point.  But I can't wait any more; I ordered the AT&T version from 
Elek-Tek for $875.
-- 

Mark McWiggins			UUCP:		uunet!intek01!mark
DISCLAIMER: I could be wrong.	INTERNET:	intek01!mark@uunet.uu.net
						(206) 455-9935

neighorn@qiclab.UUCP (Steve Neighorn) (01/24/89)

In article <381@intek01.UUCP> mark@intek01.UUCP (Mark McWiggins) writes:
>But I have a 380 MB ESDI drive (CDC 94186-383H + DTC 6280 controller)
>with 1224 cylinders, and Enix only recognizes 1024.  Not only that, it
>keeps bad a SECTOR table and not a bad TRACK table, and there can be

My experience with SYS V Release 3.2 is that it won't support more than
1024 cylinders without doing some sort of logical sector remapping. Now
there may be versions from certain vendors that do support > 1024 cylinders,
but the Bell Technologies 3.2 I have used will not. Some ESDI controllers
will allow you to convert 1224 cylinders x 15 heads x 36 sectors per track
into 654 cylinders x 16 heads x 63 sectors per track. The Western Digital
1007 ESDI controller and the Adaptec 2322 ESDI controller both have this
ability.

Also, the number of bad sectors you reported for your drive is very high,
even for a big ESDI drive. I complained when I got a Maxtor 4380 drive
with just under 90 flaws. You might run into the problem with the disk
scanner running out of slots regardless of what version of 3.2 Unix you
get. You might try checking with your vendor about swapping the drive
with one that has a few less errors. MSDOS doesn't care about errors,
so they should be able to resell the drive.... Good luck!
-- 
Steven C. Neighorn            !tektronix!{psu-cs,reed,ogccse}!qiclab!neighorn
Intel Corporation            "Where we BUILD the Star Fighters that defend the
Development Tools Operation      frontier against Xur and the Ko-dan Armada"
80960 Language Group            work: (503) 696-7264 / home: (503) 645-7015

wain@seacbc.UUCP (Wain Dobson) (01/26/89)

In article <1966@qiclab.UUCP> neighorn@qiclab.UUCP (Steve Neighorn) writes:
>In article <381@intek01.UUCP> mark@intek01.UUCP (Mark McWiggins) writes:
>>But I have a 380 MB ESDI drive (CDC 94186-383H + DTC 6280 controller)
>>with 1224 cylinders, and Enix only recognizes 1024.  Not only that, it
>>keeps bad a SECTOR table and not a bad TRACK table, and there can be
>
>My experience with SYS V Release 3.2 is that it won't support more than
>1024 cylinders without doing some sort of logical sector remapping. Now
>there may be versions from certain vendors that do support > 1024 cylinders,
>but the Bell Technologies 3.2 I have used will not. Some ESDI controllers
>will allow you to convert 1224 cylinders x 15 heads x 36 sectors per track
>into 654 cylinders x 16 heads x 63 sectors per track. The Western Digital
>1007 ESDI controller and the Adaptec 2322 ESDI controller both have this
>ability.

My experience is limited to the Miniscribe and DTC controller. However, by
mapping to 60 sectors per track, both Bell Tech 3.0 and Microport 3.0e have
responded. As well, using the DTC in native mode which provides 1222 with 2
for housekeeping, SCO 2.2.2, Bell Tech 3.0 and Microport 3.0e have responded.
In all case, sector sparing was used (34 + 1).

One problem that I have run into but, I am not sure whether it was the luck of
the draw when obtaining a Miniscribe or a goofy controller, is that the low
level would proceed normally however, both Bell Tech and Microport scans would
find sectors with no ID. Given that the low level does encoding and the
controller scan is to pick this up, I am a bit ???.

Also when using the DTC native mode without 60 sector remapping, the controller
would format 1222 and scan 1024, with Microport scanning the remaining sectors,
all 198 of them. Consequently, Microport's scan did not deal with 1024 tracks
and, if bad sectors appeared in this 1024 that were not accounted for by the
controller Microport would only know about them just before issuing a 
hd read/write error.

To cap this off, for SCO 2.2.2 I low levelled the Miniscribe with the DTC native
mode, 1222 cylinders, installed SCO using their custom table. This was last
August. But, after playing with the idea for a while, I might low level with
the 60 sector mapping, just to see what happens. Note SCO 2.2.2 is the ESDI
version.

****
My opinions, well ....

-- 
Wain Dobson
	...!{uunet,ubc-cs}!van-bc!tessera!seacbc!wain

howardl@wb3ffv.UUCP ( WB3FFV) (01/26/89)

In article <1966@qiclab.UUCP>, neighorn@qiclab.UUCP (Steve Neighorn) writes:
> In article <381@intek01.UUCP> mark@intek01.UUCP (Mark McWiggins) writes:
> >But I have a 380 MB ESDI drive (CDC 94186-383H + DTC 6280 controller)
> >with 1224 cylinders, and Enix only recognizes 1024.  Not only that, it
> >keeps bad a SECTOR table and not a bad TRACK table, and there can be
> 
> My experience with SYS V Release 3.2 is that it won't support more than
> 1024 cylinders without doing some sort of logical sector remapping. Now
> there may be versions from certain vendors that do support > 1024 cylinders,
> but the Bell Technologies 3.2 I have used will not. Some ESDI controllers
> will allow you to convert 1224 cylinders x 15 heads x 36 sectors per track
> into 654 cylinders x 16 heads x 63 sectors per track. The Western Digital
> 1007 ESDI controller and the Adaptec 2322 ESDI controller both have this
> ability.

   Well I can't speak for all vendors, espacially ENIX since they were 
nice enough to invoice me for a copy of the product, but I still haven't
recieved it as of yet (I love it :-). Anyway I have 338 meg PRIAM on a
20mhz 386 that was running under AT&T V/386 Release 3.2 with NO problem
at all. This drive has 1224 tracks and 15 heads, and I used NO sector
re-mapping. The install script liked to rap around after 1024 telling me
that the drive only had 198 tracks avalible in fdisk, but in reality
it all went fine. I also setup another V/386 Release 3.2 machine with
an RLL drive (Adaptec 2372 with NO sector remapping) that had 1156 tracks
avalible. This drive exibited the same symptoms as the ESDI install shown
above, yet in the end all was OK! I can't speak for all vendors 3.2 
product, but so far I have been very plased with the way things are going.
I will give a first hand evaluation on ENIX if I ever get any REAL product,
which I better see if they want any REAL money!!

> Also, the number of bad sectors you reported for your drive is very high,
> even for a big ESDI drive. I complained when I got a Maxtor 4380 drive
> with just under 90 flaws. You might run into the problem with the disk
> scanner running out of slots regardless of what version of 3.2 Unix you
> get. You might try checking with your vendor about swapping the drive
> with one that has a few less errors. MSDOS doesn't care about errors,
> so they should be able to resell the drive.... Good luck!

 The PRIAM drive that I recieved had 33 flaws on it, and the 3.2 release 
had no problems with this. I will assume that that is well below the 
limit of 3.2 as I haven't run into that brick wall...

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