On Thu, 10 Aug 2000, Chuck McManis wrote:

> At 06:26 AM 8/10/00 -0400, Jon Lindgren wrote:
> >Last night, while reviving my 4000/200, I was trying to give my VAX a nice
> >disk.  I've got a CMD qbus scsi controller which seems to work dandy -
> >except for one item.  It doesn't seem to like larger disks.  I started
> >with an RZ55, although I either need jumper wisdom or the drive is dead
> >(didn't spin up, couldn't see the drive anywhere on the bus).
> 
> This is the 'spin up on command' problem. If you can't jumper the drive to 
> start spinning on power up you're hosed for now. Sometimes a 'sho dev' will 
> start up the drives.

Strange.  I'd expect to see the device, maybe just not be able to
write/seek/etc... usually they probe, tho.

> This is a firmware problem on the CMD. It is limited to drives of 8GB or 
> less. There is a firmware update that can fix this, or you can use the code 
> pages on the Seagate to make it look smaller than it is. (the latter is 
> more reliable)

Aha!

Thank you, o knowledgable one.

> >I got it working beautifully with an _old_ 300MB HP drive.  It makes more
> >noise than a small honda, but it does seem to work okay.
> 
> :-) I have an RZ23 that sounds like the concorde on a take off roll

Oi.  Another drive I had sounds like the spinup command was sent with a
lawnmower-style ripcord.  "Vroooommmm" it says, and the lights dim just a
bit ;-)

> No, its just a bit older generation than most. Of all the SCSI controllers 
> I've tried on Q-bus machines the CMD has given me the least problems. There 
> is also the issue that if you're CMD wasn't told to "autosize" the drives 
> then it might have stored some drive geometry in its NVRAM that is bogus.

That's good to know.  I didn't see an autosize when I was playing with the
controller, but I'll take a second look.

Thanks 10e6.

-Jon
 --------------------------------------------------------------------
 "Hey - this old machine screams like a snail on acid!" - (a true
  comment by a fellow who recently installed NetBSD on an old server)