me@spirea.UiB.NO (My Account) (05/12/91)
Help - I think my cube is dying!
Well, I've been a happy NeXTer the last few months, having encountered (almost) none of the problems others had brought to the net (preventive medicine?), now I have a whopper...
I got a CDC 94171-376 full height 376MB hard disk that I want to install in my NeXT (internally). I didn't get any documentation with the disk so I was hoping that all would work fine as is, as the net has reported overwhelming success and reccomendation for the Wren/CDC/Seagate drives (as well as Fujitsu and Maxtor, of course :-). (BTW - if anyone has this drive, or another in the same series - i.e. 94191-766, could you tell me where the terminater is, and where the SCSI ID jumpers are? I found 3 "sets
" of jumpers, 1 just to the right of the SCSI cable connector with two jumpers - both enabled, 1 just to the left of the power plug - identical to the previous, and one to the left of this one, with 5 jumpers (or maybe 6...) none of which are enabled. The drive make says Seagate, and 01-12-90 is the date of manufacture.) See primitive diagram below:
ooooo xx
ooooo xx [P P P P] (power)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
-----------------------------------------------------------------
[:::::::::::SCSI connector::::] xx
xx
o = non attached jumper
x = attached (enables) jumper
P = power plug pin
Well, I modified etc/fstab (by commenting out "/dev/sd0a /private/swapdisk 4.3
rw,noquota,noauto 0 0"), and tried the drive. When I unplugged the swapdisk I saw that one of the pins was bent (the one in the lower left corner as you look at the motherboard from the external connections side). I _gently_ bent it back in place and reassembeled the system and booted. Now I haven't often booted from the Rom monitor (and I had never enabled the SCSI system tests, which I tried also...) but I noticed that the Quantum wasn't in the list of SCSI devices (like the OD is), and as far as I re
call when I installed the board it wasn't listed there either, 'cause I tried to install a Conner drive externally and paid atttention to those messages.... When I booted the system took a long time from recognizing the SCSI controller to going on to the other devices (OD), but I don't remember if this is normal.
When I enabled SCSI tests and rebooted I got a "System Test failed Error code 65", but I don't know if that is the SCSI controller or not. I've tried mount, scsimodes, and disk (as well as looking in the NMI mini monitor) and none of them can access the disk (which must be rsd0a as the only SCSI disk in the system...no?)
O.K. Now I've RTFM - 65 means SCSI - "Cannot load counter with test pattern"
What does that mean? Is it enough to cripple the SCSI connection?
Well, after much back and forth, I tried both disks (not at the same time, of course) and neither of them work. On top of that everytime I boot now the system says "checking disks" and then reports an error and dumps me into single user mode - in the ROM monitor. After 3 manual fsck's (a bit hairy for someone who has _no_ idea what he is doing and just would like to get the system to work - I have exams in two weeks!) I finally got the nerve-calming "skipping check - file system clean" and the familiar l
ogin screen - whew!
BTW - SCSIInquirer has never seen the Quantum after installing the 040 - I'm downloading the new version now to double check - just in case. It took much longer to start with the CDC installed (I thought it had hung, actually - but no, just slow) than with the Quantum, but neither was seen. I also checked mtab and there was no record of the Quantum (when configured for swap drive). I've now tried the lates version of SCSIInquirer - it also failed to see the drive.
I'll see if it works with the 030 board (haven't gotten around to sending it back yet ;-) and 2.0 in the meantime.
Well, I see that I've created quite a bit of confusion here - let me summarize:
1) Does anyone have experience/specs with/for a Seagate (or maybe it's a Wren?)
CDC 94171-376. I need jumper configuration/placement, terminating resistor placement/location, and helpful hints from others who have used them in their cubes.
2) What does Error code 65 (from the system tests) mean? Can a bent SCSI connector pin ruin the whole board? Bending it back (its not broken) doesn't seem to help - neither the new CDC nor the original Quantum swap is recognized at boot. I beleive this started with the new board - could it be that the SCSI chip is bad???
I appreciate any and all help - please e-mail replies.
Thor-Lee Legvold
University of Bergen
Norway
ppstl@nobergen.earn (or .bitnet)
ppstl@cc.uib.no
and now on NeXT...
me@fiol.uib.no
--
Thor-Lee Legvold | ppstl@nobergen.earn (or .bitnet)
University of Bergen | ppstl@cc.uib.no
NORWAY | and now on NeXT...
Hvor mye for datter'n din...? | me@fiol.uib.no