ssingh@watserv1.waterloo.edu ($anjay [+] $ingh - Indy Studz) (03/27/90)
I have a Seagate ST296N SCSI drive, along with the ST02 adapter. (When
you power-up, it say "SCSI Host Adapter 2.00") What I want to know
is if ANYONE is successfully running some form of Unix with this
drive.
What determines a drives compatibility with Unix?
Other info: Seagate technical support said it's recording method was RLL,
but it was a SCSI drive. Supposedly the ST02 is made by Western Digital
for Seagate.
One more question, if you are using this drive, but not the ST02 adapter,
what adapter are you using?
The rest of the system is your standard 386sx box with vga under dos 3.3.
Please help me out with any info. I'd rather not call Seagate technical
support back and wait for another half an hour.
Thanks for reading.
--
"No one had the guts... Until NOW!"
|-$anjay "lock [+] on" $ingh ssingh@watserv1.waterloo.edu N.A.R.C. ]I[-|
"No his mind is not for rent, to any God or government."-Rush, Moving Pictures
!being!mind!self!cogsci!AI!think!nerve!parallel!cybernetix!chaos!fractal!info!mh@uni-paderborn.de (Martin Husemann) (03/27/90)
ssingh@watserv1.waterloo.edu ($anjay [+] $ingh - Indy Studz) writes: >I have a Seagate ST296N SCSI drive, along with the ST02 adapter. >What determines a drives compatibility with Unix? >Other info: Seagate technical support said it's recording method was RLL, >but it was a SCSI drive. On a PC there is nothing like UNIX compatibility. No UNIX I know off makes any use of PC's BIOS. It uses its own device drivers. So what you need is a device driver for the ST02 - either by Seagate or the Vendor of your Unix. I don't think it is available yet. Your other point: a drive can use RLL recording method and communicate with the Host via SCSI. Your ST02 is no hard-disk controller, it is an host adapter. This means, the drive has an integrated disk controller, which may be a RLL. This controller communicates with the Host by SCSI. If you get your hand on a device driver, mail me! Hope that helps, Martin Husemann mh@uni-paderborn.de ...!uunet!unido!pbinfo!mh -- Martin Husemann mh@uni-paderborn.de ...!uunet!unido!pbinfo!mh
smaug@eng.umd.edu (Kurt Lidl) (03/28/90)
In article <1626@watserv1.waterloo.edu> ssingh@watserv1.waterloo.edu ($anjay [+] $ingh - Indy Studz) writes: >I have a Seagate ST296N SCSI drive, along with the ST02 adapter. (When >you power-up, it say "SCSI Host Adapter 2.00") > >What determines a drives compatibility with Unix? You need to have a device driver configured into your kernel that supports that type of device. I believe that most of '386 *nix variants have a driver that knows how to talk to a Western Digital type drive. Don't know about a ST02/ST01 interface. >One more question, if you are using this drive, but not the ST02 adapter, >what adapter are you using? Works fine for me using a GVP Impact2/0 controller on my Amiga 2000. Not running U*ix (yet), but it *does* multi-task... -- /* Kurt J. Lidl (smaug@eng.umd.edu) | Unix is the answer, but only if you */ /* UUCP: uunet!eng.umd.edu!smaug | phrase the question very carefully. */
km@speedy.cs.pitt.edu (Ken Mitchum) (03/28/90)
>I have a Seagate ST296N SCSI drive, along with the ST02 adapter. (When >you power-up, it say "SCSI Host Adapter 2.00") What I want to know >is if ANYONE is successfully running some form of Unix with this >drive. A device driver for the ST01/02 for Microport Unix 386 was posted several months ago. I have the sources if you want them. You may be able to adapt the driver to other versions of Unix. > >What determines a drives compatibility with Unix? > For a scsi device, it is the drive's compatibility with the host adapter and driver that matter. Cylinders, heads, etc. should not matter, as the SCSI device appears only as a bunch of blocks. The ST01/02 is an inexpensive host adapter specifically designed for Seagate drives. With the onboard ROM, which emulates a standard ST506 controller for the DOS bios, only Seagate drives are supported. The Microport driver assumes you pull the ROM off the board, and works with drives from other vendors. >Other info: Seagate technical support said it's recording method was RLL, >but it was a SCSI drive. Supposedly the ST02 is made by Western Digital >for Seagate. > SCSI has nothing to do with the RLL/MFM issue. The drive itself can use any encoding, as long as it presents a SCSI interface to the outside world. The ST01/02 is made by Future Domain, or at least carries a Future Domain copyright on the ROM. Ken Mitchum KY3B km@cs.pitt.edu
pcg@aber-cs.UUCP (Piercarlo Grandi) (03/29/90)
In article <1626@watserv1.waterloo.edu> ssingh@watserv1.waterloo.edu ($anjay [+] $ingh - Indy Studz) writes:
I have a Seagate ST296N SCSI drive, along with the ST02 adapter. (When
you power-up, it say "SCSI Host Adapter 2.00") What I want to know
is if ANYONE is successfully running some form of Unix with this
drive.
The ST02/ST01 are very simplified SCSI drivers that are usually bundled with
entry level Seagate drives. They are dirt cheap, but their simplificity
involves a lot of device driver work. There esists a Unix/386 driver for
them, done by some Finnish chap. I dunno whether any commercial Unix has
ready made drivers for the ST01/ST02.
From the tone of your query, I understand that you are not really into
device drivers; you may be better off using a well supported SCSI host
adapter like the AHA1542 from Adaptec....
One more question, if you are using this drive, but not the ST02 adapter,
what adapter are you using?
... which is known good with the ST296N. It is also very fast, especially
in requiring low overhead on the OS, and it supported by virtually all 386
Unixes out there. It is expensive, but if you plan to add a tape unit, it
saves you the expense of a tape controller.
Please help me out with any info. I'd rather not call Seagate technical
support back and wait for another half an hour.
The cost to the net of your message and this reply is probably a few thousand
dollars. I am responding only because the reply may be useful to the other
suckers that are paying to carry your query... :-)
--
Piercarlo "Peter" Grandi | ARPA: pcg%cs.aber.ac.uk@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk
Dept of CS, UCW Aberystwyth | UUCP: ...!mcvax!ukc!aber-cs!pcg
Penglais, Aberystwyth SY23 3BZ, UK | INET: pcg@cs.aber.ac.ukgerry@zds-ux.UUCP (Gerry Gleason) (03/30/90)
In article <1990Mar27.091434.373@uni-paderborn.de> mh@uni-paderborn.de (Martin Husemann) writes: >ssingh@watserv1.waterloo.edu ($anjay [+] $ingh - Indy Studz) writes: >>I have a Seagate ST296N SCSI drive, along with the ST02 adapter. >>What determines a drives compatibility with Unix? >>Other info: Seagate technical support said it's recording method was RLL, >>but it was a SCSI drive. >On a PC there is nothing like UNIX compatibility. No UNIX I know off makes >any use of PC's BIOS. It uses its own device drivers. So what you need is >a device driver for the ST02 - either by Seagate or the Vendor of your >Unix. I don't think it is available yet. Well, not quite. Once UNIX is booted, it no longer uses the BIOS. What you need is BIOS support for the host adapter that installs a SCSI disk as drive C. If your host adapter is like most, it has this support in a ROM on the controller, if not you can't use it for a boot drive. After the kernel is started, you need to have a device driver for the host adapter and drive. In practice *most* SCSI disk drives can be supported with a single driver since there is a sufficient common subset of commands. Drives that don't have at least this subset, I consider broken. The variable part concerns the host adapter. Unfortunately, once you have a driver, you are not ready to install a system. Your driver won't be included is the OS distribution, so it won't have a driver in the kernel on the boot floppy. I'll leave the process of producing the boot floppy you need as an exercise to the reader, but it involves having a drive and controller that are supported by the OS distribution. Gerry Gleason