*BSD News Article 84558


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From: John Lucas <jlucas@jnet.vi>
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Adaptec 2940UW works *but* ...
Date: Mon, 09 Dec 1996 09:15:12 -0400
Organization: University of the Virgin Islands
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After much trial and error, I was able to get FreeBSD v2.1.5-RELEASE to
work with the Adaptec 2940UW (PCI Ultra Wide) host adapter and the
Seagate ST32155W (Hawk XL 2GB Ultra Wide drive). The secret is use the
"dangerously dedicated" drive partitionining. Although I tried many
things I was not able to get FreeBSD to install (and boot) properly any
other way. Now I have a system with a theoretical transfer rate of
40MB/sec (!!).

Other results of my trials showed that:

	- When attempting to install on second slice, I got CRC errors 			when
writing the distribution.	(Geometry translation 4MB/cyl).

	- When attempting to use default partitioning with FreeBSD using 		the
entire disk, everything installed properly (no CRC errors), 		but I was
unable to boot (with or without boot manager). The 			bootblocks don't
seem to load.(Geometry translation 1MB/cyl).

Luckily I have no need to share the drive with any other OS, so I am now
happy with what I have, but; the behavior of this host-adapter/drive
combination puzzles me. I have another system with the Adaptec 2940 (not
Ultra, not Wide) connected to an ST32430N (another Hawk 2GB drive) with
no problems (that system runs 2.1.0-RELEASE).

Anyway I thought I would pass my experiences along so that others can
compare them to theirs and perhaps save some time, and to see if anyone
else out there can shed some light on this puzzle.

My hardware:

	Gateway 2000 P5-200 (200Mhz Pentium)
	32MB RAM with 512KB L2 Cache
	Adaptec 2940UW PCI SCSI host adapter (Ultra Wide)
	Seagate ST32155W (Hawk XL 2GB Ultra Wide)
	Mashita 8X SCSI  CD-ROM (non-Ultra non-Wide)
	SMC EtherPower 10 PCI Ethernet adapter (8432 combo).
	HP 35470 Tape drive (non-Ultra non-Wide) (awaiting delivery).

-- 
| John Lucas                          jlucas@jnet.vi                 |
| Information Technology              NIC Handle: JL423              |
| University of the Virgin Islands    (809) 693-1216                 |
| St. Thomas, VI 00802                http://www.jnet.vi/jlucas.html |