Hi,

> My experience with this problem is that a boot rom is needed.  I can't
> even boot my 7500 with Mac OS 8.5 from an Adaptec 2940 controller
> because it lacks the boot rom.
>
> I was not aware of the "write-back cache enabled item", though.

No, this isn't the issue. Having Apple firmware on the card allows it to
run at full speed; before I flashed the 2940UW, it would obviously not
boot, but NetBSD would initialise it just fine, but at 20 MB/sec. With the
firmware, NetBSD gets the card already set up so that 40 MB/sec is
possible.

Whether or not one can boot is not the issue I was raising. My issue is
about whether Adaptec cards are usable at all in NetBSD release for more
than just a trivial amount of disk traffic.

BTW - you can download the firmware updater and install Apple firmware
right over i386 firmware if you like.

John Klos
Sixgirls Computing Labs