kmcvay@oneb.UUCP (Ken McVay) (07/25/90)
Task: Install Always IN-2000 SCSI bus and Maxtor 100S SCSI disk in
386 clone using existing RLL (WD 6SR2) controller and Miniscribe
8450, making the Maxtor the bootable disk.
In the course of installing this combination, which I hadn't tried before,
I had to leave the existing system 'alone' until the SCSI bus and disk were
useable, then transfer all the existing stuff (from C: and D: on the old disk)
to the new Maxtor, then make the Maxtor the boot disk and reformat the old
disk with newer dos (ms-dos 4.01).
I readdressed the SCSI bus and loaded it at d800 - it was also necessary to
change the SCSI's I/O address before the two would work together. Doing that,
however, made the Maxtor disk 'disk 2' to dos, which meant I was unable to
use it to boot.
So - the first thing I need to learn is exactly what is it that determines
which disk is '1' and which is '2' ? Is it as simple as returning the SCSI bus
to C800, and moving the 6SR2 to D800, or am I grasping straws here?
The second thing I need to work around/through is dos's nasty habit of
re-assigning the partition designations.....when I began, Disk 1, the
Miniscribe, was divided into C: and D:
When I finished, the arrangement was:
Disk 1 (Miniscribe RLL) Disk 2 (Maxtor SCSI)
C: <Boot> D:, E:, F: <all Read/Write>
G: <Read/Write>
Is it possible to arrange things somehow so that sequential partitions
are arranged by physical position, rather than logical, ie that C: and D:
are on disk 1?
Aside: When I ordered the Maxtor 100S, I understood it to be a 96-meg device.
I did a low-level with the Always, and FDisk told me the Maxtor offered 88
megs. After completing the dos format, I ended up with 92.5 megs - a bit short
of what had been expected.
Did I err in doing the low-level with the Always bus? (I've done it with no
similar problems on Seagate SCSI drives) If so, how can I correct the problem
and get 96 megs?
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1B Systems Management Limited, Nanaimo, British Columbia | kmcvay@oneb.uucp
Canadian Distributor: FrontDoor Automated Mail Systemsiverson@xstor.UUCP (Tim Iverson) (07/28/90)
In article <153@oneb.UUCP> kmcvay@oneb.UUCP (Ken McVay) writes: > >Task: Install Always IN-2000 SCSI bus and Maxtor 100S SCSI disk in > 386 clone using existing RLL (WD 6SR2) controller and Miniscribe > 8450, making the Maxtor the bootable disk. [...] >When I finished, the arrangement was: > >Disk 1 (Miniscribe RLL) Disk 2 (Maxtor SCSI) >C: <Boot> D:, E:, F: <all Read/Write> >G: <Read/Write> > >Is it possible to arrange things somehow so that sequential partitions >are arranged by physical position, rather than logical, ie that C: and D: >are on disk 1? Well, this arrangement is due to the way that the BIOS locates drives and DOS searches for partitions on the drives found by the BIOS. Since the BIOS understands WD1003 register compatible controllers (almost all MFM and RLL, and most ESDI), these kinds of drives are always ahead of non-WD1003 compatible controllers (almost all SCSI host adapters). So, basically, you're stuck with Miniscribe @ drive 0 and Maxtor @ drive 1. DOS will first locate the normall partitions on each drive, then it will locate the extended partitions, so unless you use a 3rd party driver (e.g. SpeedStor), you're stuck with this too. Or, if you don't mind not being able to run chkdsk, you could use DOS's subst command. >[paraphrased: 88MB via fdisk, 92MB via chkdsk] >Did I err in doing the low-level with the Always bus? (I've done it with no >similar problems on Seagate SCSI drives) If so, how can I correct the problem >and get 96 megs? SCSI drives are intelligent peripherals - the low level formating process is entirely a function of the drive, not the host adapter. So, changing the HA will not alter the format on the drive. Also, the LXT-100 is a 100MB unformatted capacity drive, so 92MB is a perfectly normal formatted capacity. Besides, there are three ways that MB are computed: B/2^20, B/(10^3*2^10), and B/10^6. Marketing types prefer the last one when advertising, 'cuz it makes the drive look bigger, but engineering types prefer the first one for simpler calculations in a program. The end result is that fdisk's 88MB is really the same as chkdsk's 92MB, and either way you've got all you can get. >1B Systems Management Limited, Nanaimo, British Columbia | kmcvay@oneb.uucp > Canadian Distributor: FrontDoor Automated Mail Systems - Tim Iverson uunet!xstor!iverson