*BSD News Article 47988


Return to BSD News archive

Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!simtel!vtc.tacom.army.mil!agis!gatech!news.sprintlink.net!bga.com!web1.bga.com!not-for-mail
From: dpm@web1.bga.com (David P. Maynard)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc
Subject: Re: Quantum Grand Prix 4301S with BSDI?
Date: 27 Jul 1995 12:23:42 -0500
Organization: A poorly-installed InterNetNews site
Lines: 57
Message-ID: <3v8i2u$nnr@web1.bga.com>
References: <3umm86$fjf@news.trytel.on.ca> <DC86op.7yu@eclipse.sheridanc.on.ca> <DCBp9q.77J@metrics.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: web1.bga.com


Either contact Quantum tech support or get a new disk controller.  The
Atlas (and presumably the Grand Prix) drives are "too fast" for the
154X and 174X controllers with sync SCSI enabled.  I got new Atlas
firmware and tools from Quantum and was able to get an XP2150 running
with a 1740 under BSD/OS 2.0.  It will take you several calls to tech
support and a couple of calls to their BBS system.  However, I'm not
sure if the new firmware is available for the Grand Prix drives or not.

As I understand it, the problem arises because the Quantum drives have
what they call "ESP."  Instead of just caching the whole track, they
pre-compose the actual SCSI response in anticipation of an upcoming
request.  When the cache hits, the answers drops on the bus faster
than the older Adaptec cards can handle it.

The Buslogics controllers work fine with the drives.  The drive should
also work if you disable sync SCSI, but that would be a shame to do
with the super-fast Grand Prix/Atlas.

-dpm


In article <DCBp9q.77J@metrics.com>, Tom Haapanen <tomh@metrics.com> wrote:
>
>Has anyone successfully used a Quantum Grand Prix 4301S with BSDI 2.0?
>
>I have successfully installed it, it's recognized by the kernel at boot
>time, and I can probe the drive with scsicmd, getting the drive parameters.
>(Mind you, the 2.0 scsicmd doesn't figure out the zone recording, but
>returns just a very large number of small cylinders).  I can the use the
>disksetup utility to allocated 1.5 GB to /dev/sd3a.
>
>However, when I proceed to do a newfs, I'll get the first set of info, and
>then the light on the drive will go on and stay on. The SCSI driver will
>eventually report that there's no response after 31, 61, 91, ... seconds.
>The system is completely locked up at this point, and C-A-D is the only
>way out.
>
>I have tried this both with our usual 1742A and with a 1542CF, with
>identical results.  The latter test was done booting from the install
>floppies, and thus with a generic kernel.  The drive will low-level
>format fine using Adaptec's utilities.
>
>What could possibly cause this?  Can BSDI be incompatible with this
>particular drive geometry?
>
>P.S. The install from CD-ROM is a real pain if you have four SCSI hard
>disks -- there's no /dev/sd4* on the diskette filesystem.  Argh!
>
>-- 
>[ /tom haapanen -- tomh@metrics.com -- software metrics inc -- waterloo, ont ]
>[ "trust the programmer"                       -- preface to ansi c standard ]


-- 
 David P. Maynard, dpm@flametree.com
--