[comp.sys.next] Maxtor SCSI problems: SOLVED - SORT OF

mikec@wam.umd.edu (Michael D. Callaghan) (12/09/90)

In article <1990Dec8.224738.21815@wam.umd.edu> I write:
>Well, folks... I'm at a loss. I have my Maxtor XT-8760S hooked up
>inside my Cube, the SCSI cable is good (tried it in the Mac; worked
>fine). The SCSI address is set to 0. The termination is in place (all
>three packs). Yet, scsimodes /dev/rsd0a still reports "unable to open
>/dev/rsd0a." Yes, the drive is powered up. Yes, the drive works fine
>in the Mac. I don't know what to do. Any help will be appreciated.

The problem is unsolvable, so it would seem. Apparently, the Maxtor
in the Cube isn't a stock Maxtor drive. It works, though, (seemingly)
if you make it an external SCSI drive! I don't get it, myself. But
as I type this, BuildDisk is going about its business without a 
problem.

Any comments on this oddity will be welcomed...

MikeC


--
___________________________________________________
Michael D. Callaghan,MDC Designs, University of Merryland
mikec@wam.umd.edu

izumi@fugitive.berkeley.edu (Izumi Ohzawa) (12/09/90)

In article <1990Dec9.005624.25578@wam.umd.edu> mikec@wam.umd.edu (Michael D. Callaghan) writes:
>In article <1990Dec8.224738.21815@wam.umd.edu> I write:
>>/dev/rsd0a." Yes, the drive is powered up. Yes, the drive works fine
>>in the Mac. I don't know what to do. Any help will be appreciated.
>
>The problem is unsolvable, so it would seem. Apparently, the Maxtor
>in the Cube isn't a stock Maxtor drive. It works, though, (seemingly)
>if you make it an external SCSI drive! I don't get it, myself. But

I've read somewhere, maybe in this newsgroup, sometime ago
that Maxtor drives sold for Macs have special ROMs to deal
with somewhat non-standard SCSI protocol used in that machine.
Thus, Maxtor drives taken from Macs would not work on NeXT's or
for that matter on Suns?.

What is a stock Maxtor drive is a matter of a point of view.
I tend to think that Mac version is non-stock.

In any case, if you intend to order Maxtor drives from a 3-rd party
vendor, ask the vendor to ship a drive for Sun machines, not the one
for Macs.  
I bought a stock Maxtor XT-8760S from a 3-rd party vendor this way,
and didn't fortunately have any problem installing in a Cube.
The drive, though, came formatted with 512-byte sectors, so
I lost a bit of space for that.

Izumi Ohzawa, izumi@violet.berkeley.edu

SLVQC@CUNYVM (Salvatore Saieva) (12/14/90)

In article <1990Dec9.032747.6299@agate.berkeley.edu>,
izumi@fugitive.berkeley.edu (Izumi Ohzawa) says:
> [text deleted]
>In any case, if you intend to order Maxtor drives from a 3-rd party
>vendor, ask the vendor to ship a drive for Sun machines, not the one
>for Macs.
>I bought a stock Maxtor XT-8760S from a 3-rd party vendor this way,
>and didn't fortunately have any problem installing in a Cube.
>The drive, though, came formatted with 512-byte sectors, so
>I lost a bit of space for that.
>
>Izumi Ohzawa, izumi@violet.berkeley.edu

Isn't there a formatting program around for these Maxtor
drives so you can get the 1024-byte sectors?

Sal.
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