neese@adaptx1.UUCP (01/04/91)
>1. I've connected the floppy cable to the 1522 and removed the old FDC. It >almost works, except that trying to access 360K disks in drive A (5.25", 1.2M) >causes DOS to say "General error". Both 1.44M and 720K disks work in drive B >(3.5"). I've tried shorting 8th jumper on J7 (dual speed), and this didn't seem >to help. Shorting the dual speed jumper is the right thing to do. I have called engineering about this and they are looking at it. In the mean time; Did you try booting from a 360K floppy? Or was there a 1.2M floppy in the drive and then you tried to switch to a 360K floppy? >2. At boot time, the code in Adaptec ROM goes through part of the diagnostic >(SCSI reset...), but then says: > >>Checking SCSI target 0: >> Executing SCSI inquiry command >> >>Target 0: target not connected. > >*However*, I've made a (1.2M) bootable floppy with MS-DOS 3.31 and CONFIG.SYS >that says: > >device=aspi2dos.sys /D >device=aspidisk.sys /D > >and when I boot from that disk, SCSI inquiry correctly returns the name of the >disk (MAXTOR LXT100S) and it procedes to complain that INT 13H isn't >redirected, and then everything seems to work! I'm able to access disk C: from >DOS, and everything appears to be as it was under FHA. The messages from 2DOS >match those from ROM: INT 11, PIO, disconnect enabled... > >I've checked all the jumpers, and they're at factory default settings (INT 11, >DMA channel 0, etc). I've added #3 on J5 to get more diagnostics at boot time, >and I've tried shorting #6 on J8 (parity). (The disk has no parity jumper, so I >don't know if it's on or off. This had no effect anyway.) Try adding the jumper to the 1522 to enable synchronous negotiation. Quite frankly, we have had a number of problems associated with this particular Maxtor drive. >I'm highly dissatisfied with Adaptec's technical support policy. Their >literature lists no voice number, but says that "questions can be answered" via >a BBS in California, which should be called at 8 data bits, no parity. I called >it 3 times before I realized that it does *not* connect at 8-N-1, but connects >at 7 bits, even parity. Then I got what seemed to me like an extremely >obnoxious message saying that if I want any answers from them, I must first >provide the name of the AUTHORIZED distributor I got the board from, his phone >number, and the same of the support person I've already spoken with. I have no >idea whether the people I got it from are "authorized" (they are a reputable >store), and I can't reach them for a few days. When I tried to get an account >on the BBS, it made me wait for a number of minutes and I eventually hung up. What we are trying to do is to get the Tech Support people at the distributors up to speed on our products so they can do a good job of supporting the customers that purchase from them. We have training seminars for our high volume distributors (Wyle, Anthem, Arrow, Hamilton-Avnet and others) so they can better support the customer at a local level. These distributors also get direct support from some very good people at our factory. I do understand the frustration. And here is the number for which you can reach our factory and the Tech Support people. 408-945-8600. The reason the BBS asks about the AUTHORIZED dealer is to track the number of calls we get from customers that are not being taken care of by the distributor. The AUTHORIZED dealer is anyone legitimately selling our products. That is to say, distributors that buy directly from our factory. If a distributor is not holding up thier end of the business, we need to know. >I'm pretty much out of ideas (other than giving this card back and getting >another 16-bit SCSI controller, such as Future Domain model 885, which is my >current inclination :). So, I would greatly appreciate any and all suggestions >regarding the following questions. (I'm back to FHA in the meantime). > >1. Can I make DOS recognize 360K disks with 1522? It does work, but it is being looked into further. >2. Can I make SCSI Inquire command function at boot time? I want to boot from >the hard disk, not the floppy! Try my suggestion above. >3. Is there much difference between 152x and 1542B? Two completely different universes. >4. Does anyone possibly know if the performance of 16-bit Future Domain >controllers is much worse than Adpatecs? Can't say. Roy Neese Adaptec Senior SCSI Applications Engineer UUCP @ neese@adaptex uunet!cs.utexas.edu!utacfd! {nominil,merch,cpe}!adaptex!neese uunet!mlite!adaptex!neese