sievert@gypsy.ims.fhg.de (Karsten Sievert) (04/05/91)
Hi! Some month ago I bought an old SH204 housing with a Seagate ST251 40MB HD. This combination doesn't start properly. After power up it never starts, so I have to switch it off and on again and again, until it works. Once started, it operates ok, no problems at all. This is a problem between controller and HD, I don't even have to connect the ST to watch it. I even used an logic analyser to find out about it, but found nothing. The procedure is this: After power up, the HD performs its selftest. this ends up in moving the heads to track 0 and reporting READY\. Than the controller moves the heads slowly up some tracks and jumps back to track zero. Here it stopps for some 10ms "thinking"... Now comes the point: Either the controller works on by moving the head upwards about 8 steps of about 10 tracks (numbers may be wrong) --- or --- it doesn't. If it doesn't, the ST wouldn't recognize the HD and boot. Can someone give me a hint or a heck to solve this ***** problem? I'm just about to smash it ... -Clarance (sievert@ims.fhg.de)
wallace@ynotme.enet.dec.com (Ray Wallace) (04/08/91)
In article <68@gypsy.ims.fhg.de>, sievert@gypsy.ims.fhg.de (Karsten Sievert) writes... >Some month ago I bought an old SH204 housing with a Seagate ST251 40MB HD. >This combination doesn't start properly. After power up it never starts, A hard disk draws a lot of current when is first turned on. If the power supply is not big enough to handle the drive then you will see problems on powerup. This frequently happens when people upgrade a drive mechanism (ie: putting a 40 meg drive into an SH204) without upgrading the power supply (or checking it to see if it is sufficient). Try powering the drive off of a bigger power supply (mostly the +12 has to have more current drive) and see if that doesn't cure your problem. --- Ray Wallace (INTERNET,UUCP) wallace@oldtmr.enet.dec.com (UUCP) ...!decwrl!oldtmr.enet!wallace (INTERNET) wallace%oldtmr.enet@decwrl.dec.com ---