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Awww I love SCSI - NOT!

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Shadow Lord

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Okay, I had forgotten how much fun SCSI can be!

I am trying to setup an Adaptec 1742A SCSI-2 controller. The controller is installed, the BIOS is activated and I get the BIOS version info displayed. I have also terminated the adapter and the jumper is set for term power. The adapter ahas the std. SCSI ID of 7. I tried installing one SCSI-2 device (Seagate HDD) w/ SCSI ID 0. Since the HDD is the only other device on the chain I have it terminated as well. When I turn the system on however, the controller does not see any devices on the SCSI bus on any ID. I've tried switching out the cable and also using a SCSI Tape Drive (also terminated) to see if the HDD is the culprit and the result is the same. I've tried most combination of options in the SCSI cards config w/ no luck. According to the manual the card does a self diagnostic at startup and based on what I see the card is passing itself w/ flying colors. Any ideas or advice? Could the controller be bad even if it is booting, posting the BIOS, able to be configed, and passing its own self dx? I think it is something real simple that I am missing...
 
Since the 1742A is an EISA card, your problem may be more with the EISA setup than the SCSI installation. If you didn't run the EISA configuration Utility after you installed the hard drive, that may be your problem.

If you don't have the Adaptec manual it is located here:

http://download.adaptec.com/pdfs/user_guides/aha1740a_um.pdf

Don't forget about the hard drive size limitations for DOS and the associated settings on the 1742A.
 
Chuckster_in_Jax said:
Since the 1742A is an EISA card, your problem may be more with the EISA setup than the SCSI installation. If you didn't run the EISA configuration Utility after you installed the hard drive, that may be your problem.

If you don't have the Adaptec manual it is located here:

http://download.adaptec.com/pdfs/user_guides/aha1740a_um.pdf

Don't forget about the hard drive size limitations for DOS and the associated settings on the 1742A.
Click to expand...

Chuckster_in_Jax,

Thanks for the info. However, the EISA portion is fine. Without the EISA cfg being run the card would not work or show BIOS info. The HDD size doesn't even come into play as the HDD is not even recognized by the adapter.
 
Does the card diagnostics see any drives connected? Check the HD termination jumper, term power jumper (does it need term power from the HD or from the bus), and also check to see if there is an auto spin up jumper for the HD (some wait until they are told to spin up so you can stagger them in large power hungry multi drive raid arrays).

Could also be a bad cable or the fuse on the card is blown.
 
Unknown_K said:
Does the card diagnostics see any drives connected? Check the HD termination jumper, term power jumper (does it need term power from the HD or from the bus), and also check to see if there is an auto spin up jumper for the HD (some wait until they are told to spin up so you can stagger them in large power hungry multi drive raid arrays).

Could also be a bad cable or the fuse on the card is blown.
Click to expand...

1. Nothing is seen by the card.
2. I have tried having the HDD supply the term power and also tried having the bus supply the power. The same w/ the tape drive.
3. The motor startup jumper is set
4. Already replaced the cable
5. No fuse on the card to blow
 
Got an ASPI driver for the card? Try loading it and then using the Adaptec (or anyone else's) ASPI scan utility.

At least this will tell you if the device is responding to an IDENTFY request.

(I'm assuming that you have terminators at both ends of the cable (i.e. the card and the drive) )
 
Chuckster_in_Jax said:
Since the Adaptec card has it's own floppy controller built-in, make sure you've disabled the floppy controller on your motherboard. A long shot, but you never know.
Click to expand...

Actually the Adaptec floppy controller is disabled. I did have to move the Adaptec BIOS memory location to make it work but that is it.
 
Adaptec cards of that era might have problems disabling its onboard floppy controller. (2840's onboard floppy controller will not disable no matter how its dip switches are set)
 
Chuck(G) said:
Got an ASPI driver for the card? Try loading it and then using the Adaptec (or anyone else's) ASPI scan utility.

At least this will tell you if the device is responding to an IDENTFY request.

(I'm assuming that you have terminators at both ends of the cable (i.e. the card and the drive) )
Click to expand...

Are you trying to find if the adaptec adapter can identify the HDD? I can try loading the ASPI drivers but at boot the card lists all the equipment at the SCSI IDs. Unfortunately, it does not find anything at any of the SCSI IDs.
 
Are the 3 internal SCSI terminators installed on the card (they get removed if you use both internal and external drives but need to be installed when using just internal)?

Card LED diagnostics:

LED Remains On Host Adapter Control Processor failure. Terminators inoperative, missing or not powered-on or the card enable has not been asserted after reset.
 
Unknown_K said:
Are the 3 internal SCSI terminators installed on the card (they get removed if you use both internal and external drives but need to be installed when using just internal)?

Card LED diagnostics:

LED Remains On Host Adapter Control Processor failure. Terminators inoperative, missing or not powered-on or the card enable has not been asserted after reset.
Click to expand...

As I said the card is terminated and the card passes its own self-diagnostics.
 
dorkbert said:
Adaptec cards of that era might have problems disabling its onboard floppy controller. (2840's onboard floppy controller will not disable no matter how its dip switches are set)
Click to expand...

Okay removed the CCIV FDD and it made no difference. Still not seeing anything connected to the card. :crazy:
 
According to http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/if/scsi/modes_Fast.htm (and other web sites), Fast SCSI devices (SCSI 2) may use either Single Ended (SE) or High Voltage Differential (HVD) signaling. According to http://www.datapro.net/techinfo/scsi_doc.html, Single Ended and differential can only be mixed if the differential type is LVD and even then, only in certain circumstances. Are you perhaps mixing Fast SCSI devices of both SE (your 1742A controller) and HVD?

Parity enabled on controller but not on hard drive / tape drive?

Shadow Lord said:
Could the controller be bad even if it is booting, posting the BIOS, able to be configed, and passing its own self dx?
Click to expand...
Yes, that is a possibility. One example: Bad solder joint on the SCSI connector. Another example: Card diagnostics has no ability to put SCSI bus driver/receiver circuitry into loopback mode (or it can, but the loopback is occuring before faulty circuitry).
 
modem7 said:
According to http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/if/scsi/modes_Fast.htm (and other web sites), Fast SCSI devices (SCSI 2) may use either Single Ended (SE) or High Voltage Differential (HVD) signaling. According to http://www.datapro.net/techinfo/scsi_doc.html, Single Ended and differential can only be mixed if the differential type is LVD and even then, only in certain circumstances. Are you perhaps mixing Fast SCSI devices of both SE (your 1742A controller) and HVD?

Parity enabled on controller but not on hard drive / tape drive?


Yes, that is a possibility. One example: Bad solder joint on the SCSI connector. Another example: Card diagnostics has no ability to put SCSI bus driver/receiver circuitry into loopback mode (or it can, but the loopback is occuring before faulty circuitry).
Click to expand...

Thanks for the info. But I don't have any HVD/LVD devices on this machine. The HDD drive is a Seagate ST32250N and the Tape Drive is a Conner/Seagate CTS-8000S. Can't even be mixing them as there is only one device and the adapter on the chain at this point. I've tried all of my old SCSI tricks (I've owned quite a few PCI/ISA Adaptec adapters) and none worked. Granted this is an EISA unit, but Adaptec is surprisingly consistent in how they do things.
 
Well, I am just about ready to throw in the towel. The only other thing maybe would be that the termination resistors are bad. They are not originals as they were missing. I bought three 150ohm resistors as specified by the user's guide. However, since the self dx checks for termination I would think a bad resistor would show up on that test.
 
Shadow Lord said:
Are you trying to find if the adaptec adapter can identify the HDD? I can try loading the ASPI drivers but at boot the card lists all the equipment at the SCSI IDs. Unfortunately, it does not find anything at any of the SCSI IDs.
Click to expand...

Well, yes and no. The usual SCSI BIOS is sometimes blind, but an ASPI driver can allow a test program to send an IDENTIFY command to each address to see if a device is responding at all.

That being said, you want to set J6 (floppy) on the 1742A removed, so it doesn't conflict with your CC IV.

Next, you really want to make sure that the STANDARD.HEX firmware is installed for compatibility with the 1540. It's just easier this way.

Note that the 1742A BIOS in standard mode looks only for SCSI ID 0 and 1, so the ASPI driver is the way to go.

Attached is a program to scan for devices using the ASPI driver interface.
 

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