ricks@iscuva.ISCS.COM (Rick Schaeffer) (08/13/89)
I've been having some spooky problems with the 2090A controller, so
I'm posting this in hopes that someone can help. First, a little
history. I previously owned a 2090 (not 2090A) and used it with a
Seagate ST251 40 Meg drive. I then had an opportunity to purchase
a Rodime RO5081S SCSI drive (150 meg, 5 1/4 half-height) at a pretty
good price. I installed the Rodime on my system and it worked real
well! It's real fast (>650k/sec dperf2 times) and seemed reliable.
I later added an A2620 card to my system and at about the same time
ordered a 2090A to replace the 2090 (the plan being to sell the 2090
and Seagate drive to a friend).
Well, the 2090A doesn't seem to like the Rodime drive! I am unable
to run Prep on the Rodime, and, if I Prep using the 2090 (which works
fine...same Prep program and all!) I am unable to access the Rodime.
A friend has a 2090A and a Seagate ST251 so I took the Rodime drive
over to his house one evening and tried it there. It worked fine!
So, I took the 2090A back to my dealer for replacement because it
seemed to be a problem with my particular 2090A. The other day, the
replacement 2090A came in...and it doesn't work either! I have spent
the past couple of days working with it....here's the scooby:
1. Tried my friends controller with 2090A, ST251, and RO5081S.
It still worked.
2. Took the ST251 out of circuit.
My friend's 2090A didn't work either!
3. Replaced my friend's 2090A with mine.
Same results as above for both cases.
4. Removed the boot ROMs from the 2090A.
Everything worked!! Except, of course, I can't auto boot,
which was the whole idea in the first place.
Other things I have tried include formatting & using the Rodime with a
friend's Hardframe controller (works fine) and a trip to another friend's
house who has a Quantum 80 meg drive & 2090. Was able to set up the
boot partition on his drive and use my 2090A with no problems. I have
also tried various default (boot) partition sizes on the Rodime with
no success.
The symptoms that I consistantly see are:
1. As I boot from floppy, I see the Rodime's drive light flash once
and then the boot process completes. If I then try to mount res2:
it completes normally but when I "prep res2:" the drive light
immediately comes on and stays on. I go through answering all
the prep questions and then get an immediate "Drive not PREPped"
message. The drive light stays on throughout. Using the 2090
for the same thing, I get a quick flash of the light when prep
first comes up and then, after answering all the questions, the
light comes back on and I hear the ticking of the prep process
followed by a "Drive prepped" message.
2. If I boot from floppy having first prepped the Rodime using the
2090, I usually see a quick flash of the drive light during the
boot process, but no icon for drive DH2 appears. If I try to
mount my fast file system partition (named FS2:), the drive
light comes on and stays on but the mount command completes
normally. If I issue the "info" command, it tells me that
FS2: is "not a dos disk".
It seems clear that there is some problem in the boot ROM. Either it is
doing something during the boot process which screws up the Rodime from
then on or there is some difference between the "hddisk" driver that
is stored in the ROM and the "hddisk" driver that is in the Expansion
drawer.
Sorry about the length of this posting! I wanted to describe the
situation completely enough that someone would be able to help me get
this problem resolved (hopefully CATS). My dealer is pursuing "official"
channels. Any suggestions or ideas appreciated. Also, one of the reasons
I went with this particular combination of drive and controller is so that
I would be able to run Unix when the time comes. Anyone know if any
of the third party controllers (Hardframe, GVP, etc) will be able to support
Unix?
--
Rick Schaeffer UUCP: uunet!isc-br!ricks
ISC-Bunker Ramo ricks@isc-br.ISC-BR.COM
Box TAF-C8 Phone: (509)927-5114
Spokane, WA 99220) (08/14/89)
In article <2593@iscuva.ISCS.COM>, ricks@iscuva.ISCS.COM (Rick Schaeffer) writes... > >I've been having some spooky problems with the 2090A controller, so If your machine is a rev 4.4, does it have a resistor tacked onto U605 (pin 11 to pin 20)? This fix is needed for some 2090A's, but is required for the 2620's. Mark Kaye | | | Box 172, Munster Hamlet | 613-838-3580 | kaye@fscore.dec.com | Ontario, Canada K0A 3P0 | | DEC fscore::kaye or kaye @kao |