SCSI question

[hunterjwizzard]

I'm getting ready to add a 15k RPM SCSI drive to one of my systems. I'll be using a standard SCA80 adapter to connect 80 pin to 68 pin. Is this proper jumpering for one drive at address 0 and terminated?

 

[krebizfan]

It would be easier to confirm with information on which drive is being considered.

That should give an ID of 0 on most drives.

The MTR jumper isn't for termination. It decides whether the drive starts spinning immediately or waits for the system to contact it. At least, that is the case with IBM drives. Other drives may have different meanings for a jumper label.

 

[hunterjwizzard]

Ok. So I can't terminate from this device, can I?

 

[krebizfan]

What is the device being shown? It doesn't look to include termination in that set of jumpers. Most actual SCSI drives have a termination jumper or resistor pack plus an option to power the terminator. Seagate drives often had two sets of jumpers with some items duplicated and others only accessible in the jumper block that is harder to access. It always seemed that I needed to change the jumpers next to the SCSI connector in a rack but the front mounted jumpers in a desktop.

Note that some 68-pin cables have a terminator at the very end. Those are convenient. It isn't necessary to go through the drives and switch the termination every time a drive is added or removed. For similar reasons, if you decide to try external drives, an external terminator plug saves a lot of time when reorganizing.

 

[hunterjwizzard]

What is the device being shown?

The device is an 80 pin to 68 pin converter. Its how you can use an 8 pin drive by itself without needing a big complex drivebay. A typical 80 pin drive has no numbers of its own and relies on the SCSI hot-swap bay(which I am not using).

Note that some 68-pin cables have a terminator at the very end

I solved my termination problem this way, thanks

 

[jlang]

ID 0 would be no ID jumpers.

 

[jafir]

ID 0 would be no ID jumpers.

Right. 16bit scsi has 16 id, 0-15, so the 4 jumpers are binary digits.

Here is a good chart stolen from this seagate manual:

https://www.seagate.com/staticfiles/maxtor/en_us/documentation/installation_guides/atlas_10k_iii_installation_guide.pdf

 

[Unknown_K]

SCA drives have no built in termination, you need a SCSI cable with a terminator on the end.

 

[Unknown_K]

 

[hunterjwizzard]

View attachment 1308431

That is exactly the cable I ended up using.

 

[hunterjwizzard]

Anyone care to speculate as to why I can't boot to the SCSI drive? I did a format c: /s on it and it won't go. Tried in 2 different systems.

 

[jafir]

The format won’t go? Or it won’t boot after the format succeeds?

What SCSI ID did you choose? Some cards will only boot from 0. Some cards require you to pick the boot device from the SCSI BIOS setup.

Also some scsi cards you can disable the boot BIOS, so make sure it’s enabled. Can you see it enumerate the devices on POST?

 

[hunterjwizzard]

The format won’t go? Or it won’t boot after the format succeeds?

What SCSI ID did you choose? Some cards will only boot from 0. Some cards require you to pick the boot device from the SCSI BIOS setup.

Also some scsi cards you can disable the boot BIOS, so make sure it’s enabled. Can you see it enumerate the devices on POST?

Now it is booting but disk operations are borderline impossible. Dir takes minutes to resolve.

The drive is set to ID 0, I have not touched the SCSI BIOS. I have been pulling the card back and forth between 2 machines so no point doing settings.

 

[Unknown_K]

Do a scandisk. What does the SCSI card bootup screen show for drive and configuration?

 

[hunterjwizzard]

Do a scandisk. What does the SCSI card bootup screen show for drive and configuration?

Passed the scandisk with flying colors. The SCSI cards bootup screen shows what is expected, the single drive configured on ID0.

 

[Unknown_K]

Passed the scandisk with flying colors. The SCSI cards bootup screen shows what is expected, the single drive configured on ID0.

Does it come up as 8 bit 16-bit sync 20,40,80,160,320 etc.

 

[hunterjwizzard]

Does it come up as 8 bit 16-bit sync 20,40,80,160,320 etc.

 

[krebizfan]

Are you willing to try something that may not work?
FDISK the drive into multiple smaller partitions. Maybe an 8 GB primary partition and then the rest as an extended partition broken into a couple of smaller logical drives. Just to avoid any bugs from the FAT32 implementation. Maybe even try a 2 GB FAT16 primary partition.

A complete inventory of the system may help in searching for any conflicts.

 

[hunterjwizzard]

Well, I'm not thrilled with the idea since it will mean having to copy all the setup files & drivers over again. But at this point since I haven't got any better ideas it might be my only choice.

For reference, the CF card the machine boots off of is 64gb FAT32, so the machine handles large drives just fine. It appears to specifically be SCSI as the boot drive for reasons I cannot determine.

 

[Starcat]

Anyone care to speculate as to why I can't boot to the SCSI drive? I did a format c: /s on it and it won't go. Tried in 2 different systems.

When initially configuring an Adaptec HBA, I recommend using the SCSISelect utility to format the disk and verify the disk media prior to partitioning and formatting with any operating system.

It's the only way to confirm the hardware configuration, inclusive of motherboard *and* HBA BIOS settings prior to loading the operating system(s).

The format won’t go? Or it won’t boot after the format succeeds?

What SCSI ID did you choose? Some cards will only boot from 0. Some cards require you to pick the boot device from the SCSI BIOS setup.

Also some scsi cards you can disable the boot BIOS, so make sure it’s enabled. Can you see it enumerate the devices on POST?

Now it is booting but disk operations are borderline impossible. Dir takes minutes to resolve.

The drive is set to ID 0, I have not touched the SCSI BIOS. I have been pulling the card back and forth between 2 machines so no point doing settings.

No point in SCSI HBA BIOS settings, huh? Perhaps whereas your particular hardware and software combination is concerned, but I can assure you that HBA BIOS settings do matter. The default settings are not always appropriate and can cause a myriad of issues.

Are you willing to try something that may not work?
FDISK the drive into multiple smaller partitions. Maybe an 8 GB primary partition and then the rest as an extended partition broken into a couple of smaller logical drives. Just to avoid any bugs from the FAT32 implementation. Maybe even try a 2 GB FAT16 primary partition.

A complete inventory of the system may help in searching for any conflicts.

Well, I'm not thrilled with the idea since it will mean having to copy all the setup files & drivers over again. But at this point since I haven't got any better ideas it might be my only choice.

For reference, the CF card the machine boots off of is 64gb FAT32, so the machine handles large drives just fine. It appears to specifically be SCSI as the boot drive for reasons I cannot determine.

The fact that your system can boot from a CF card attached to an IDE interface has little bearing on anything SCSI related. Can SCSISelect format and verify the hard disk media?