Returning to this computer. Using Ontrack Disk Manager for DOS, I was able to have DOS access all 16 GB. of the CF card (by default MS-DOS 6.22 can only see 8.4 GB. on a drive), divided into 2 GB. drives. Using the last drive of the CF card, I copied the Win98 SE installation CD files onto it. I was thus able to install Windows 98 onto the CF card. That enables a lot of automatic driver installation, long file name access, far easier file management, etc. The IDE channels are working fine.
The Adaptec SCSI card is still not working. Despite once recognizing a (faulty) hard drive and the CD-ROM drive, it will still recognize neither now.
- I found the installation guide for the card (in addition to the user's reference manual I found earlier), but that does not help.
- The card has a J4 jumper (set to 0) and a J6 jumper (set to 0). Neither its manual nor installation guide tell what these jumpers are for. Can anyone help identify them? Maybe they are the answer.
Dell ISA configuration utility
This webpage of the manual for the GX1 says:
NOTICE: The ICU is intended only for configuring non-Plug and Play ISA expansion cards. It should not be used for assigning resources to Plug and Play expansion cards and PCI expansion cards. These cards should be configured automatically by the basic input/output system (BIOS).
So the Dell ISA configuration utility is not the solution for this PCI SCSI card.
More efforts:
- A new-used 68-pin SCSI HDD (18 GB.) arrived via eBay today. The listing said it works. I connected it with the 50-68-80-pin SCSI adaptor (with Molex connector for power). It sounds fine when powered up. The SCSI BIOS does not see it.
- I had Win98 search for new hardware; none found.
- Using Control Panel/Add New Hardware, I specifically told Win98 to install drivers for this model of SCSI card. It did; nothing changed even after reboot.
The SCSI card BIOS is always announced on the ASCII BIOS screen. When the SCSI card
has worked in the past and recognized devices, it then listed them on the ASCII boot-up screen.
I tried EZ-SCSI 4.0a for 1.44 MB. floppy. It said no SCSI host adapters were detected and wouldn't proceed any further than that. I went into the SCSI BIOS and verified that the host adapter was in fact enabled.
So the problem seems to clearly be the SCSI card somehow. It can interact with the motherboard and recognizes itself but doesn't recognize any other SCSI devices connected to it, even though it once did. I don't know what setting I might need to change.
The card has a J4 jumper (set to 0) and a J6 jumper (set to 0). Neither its manual nor installation guide tell what these jumpers are for. Can anyone help identify them? Maybe they are the answer. J4 seems to be labeled LVDTE and J6 seems to be labeled SETE. But I've also looked at 5 other copies of this model SCSI card on eBay and none of them have jumpers on either of those positions.