> >> Hmm ... same mode-sense problem that ZIPs have.  Maybe I'll look at this
> >> today.
> >
> > This seems more to be a problem with the drive, it doesn't have a fixed
> >geometry or such. My old Epson optical said this, but it could be safely
> >ignored. No program can get the geometry out of it, and generally no mode
> >sense page 4 at all.
> >
> I don't understand that netbsd recogizes the drive, it's type and then it
> spits out the errors, and refused to work with it.
>   Why do you suspect the drive (it seems to work fine on a Macintosh
> running .....7.5MacOS

The thing is that UNIX likes to know the layout of the disk. In the early
eighties, when the fast file system was first developed, the computer
had to tell the disks where to seek and such. The file structure was
optimized to minimize the number of times the heads had to move. To
be able to do this, UNIX needs the drive layout.

What's happening here is that SCSI hard disks respond to a particular
SCSI inquiery by reporting the layout of the disk. This MO is not
responding to this command, as doesn't the ZIP drive.

Thus the error message.

The reason that MacOS is happy, is that MacOS doesn't care about the
layout of the disk. SCSI, and MacOS, look at the drive as an array
of sectors, numbered from 0 to the end of the disk. Use them as you
like.

Given that SCSI drives can re-map dead sectors to other parts of the
disk, and that some drives have a variable # of sectors/track,
UNIX's insistance on the disk layout is a bit antequated.

Take care,

Bill