SCSI Problems :/

fitzsteve

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Hi!

I'm hoping a guru here can help! I'm trying to setup a couple of SCSI HDD's for a friend, I'm not great with SCSI but I said I'd try and help as they've not been to get them up and running.

Of the two drives the first is an UW SCSI Drive, 68pin so ideal to hook up to a CSMkIII. If I add this drive to my SCSI chain my Amiga 4000 wont boot any more, it gets stuck in a reboot loop trying to boot from this drive and I can't even access the early startup menu (holding two mouse buttons does nothing)

I have tried setting an IDE device (on the A4000 IDE) and my other SCSI drive to a higher priority so they boot first but then it boots up with Dos errors and cannot load Workbench. I find it weird how a drive can corrupt other drives? If I disconnect it my other drives work fine :dry:

I've checked that the ID isn't conflicting and even tried other ID's and my SCSI chain is correctly terminated, I have Active terminators before the MkIII and at the end of the chain.

Any idea's?

The second drive is a 50gb Seagate Baracuda with 80pin connector. I have used an 80pin to UW SCSI connector and my system boots as normal and I can see it in HDToolBox as 'Unknown' but HDTools tells me it cannot handle this drive type, the same story with HDInstTools. I checked ID jumpers again to no avail? Also this drive makes some nasty clunking noises when spinning up so maybe it's actually faulty? Or maybe there is a problem or special setting I need on the on the adapter?

Any Idea's?

I was able to successfully configure one of my own spare UW SCSI Drives for my friend so all isn't lost, they're still getting a fully working drive for their A4000 but I'm just stumped by these two.

When I connected my own drive as the second SCSI drive I was able to prepare it in HDToolBox with SFS no problems and install CWB3.9 from a System.zip I created, in fact it was really fast to setup from my Deneb USB! Almost WinUAE speeds :eek:

So I guess I'm doing right so maybe these other drives are just faulty?

Thanks in advance!

Steve.
 
first thing scsi ids - number of device
2nd termination

scsi 101

workout what the jumpers do on the HDD

spin up is a fun one

yep found 68 pin drives a lot easer than the 80 pin ones
 
If my SCSI Chain has active termination at both ends do the drives still need the termination jumper in place?

I already tried multiple ID's (different to my other drive of course to no avail)

The only thing I haven't tried is booting from floppy Disk to see if I can clear the RDB on this drive, that's because I don't have a floppy drive in this Amiga

I know an Amiga without a floppy drive, who'd have thought :LOL:
 
nope drives dont need it as you already don it on the cable

not sure about 80 pin jumpers but my 64pin drives can be set for narrow or wide

doon`t bother clearin RDB

2 button salute and disable drives or choose ya boot device
no floppy is what the ide connector is for :)
 
nope drives dont need it as you already don it on the cable

not sure about 80 pin jumpers but my 64pin drives can be set for narrow or wide

doon`t bother clearin RDB

2 button salute and disable drives or choose ya boot device
no floppy is what the ide connector is for :)

Hi Mate, as said when this UW drive is connected I cannot access the early boot menu, the system immediately tries to boot from the drive and will not let me enter it :(

I even hold the buttons from power on and after soft reset to no avail!

For the other drive...

I will see if my adapter has a jumper for narrow/wide for the 80pin drive (y)
 
have you got a scsi card in your pc steve?,just to see if the drives ok.
 
have you got a scsi card in your pc steve?,just to see if the drives ok.

I have a SCSI card here but the last time I tried it in my PC it wouldn't boot (BSOD)

I reluctant to try again :LOL:

I have a spare PC I could try it on but really wanted to avoid pulling PC's apart to be honest.
 
Hi Steve,

In my setups I need to set to ON the "Power termination" in one of the drives or bridges. Without this I get some random issues ("unknown drive", "unknown bridge", ....).

Also I've found errors with drives over 80GB, only some old Seagate units of 120GB & 200GB can work with my CSPPC's. But with drives up to 80GB I can use a wide range of brands.

I hope this helps :)
 
Hi Fitzsteve,

If the drive you're using is a UW device, then make sure the last device on the chain is a UW device as well and has it's termination set. If the drive you're using is an LVD device, you'll need to get a separate terminator and insert it into the last plug on the SCSI cable, as LVD drives don't have termination on them.

One other VERY important aspect of SCSI is the termination power, this needs to be set, regardless whether active or passive termination is used. Make sure only one device on the SCSI bus has it's termination power enabled, disable it on all other devices. I'm not sure if the CSMkIII has an option in it's setup to enable or disable term power on the board itself. The GVP SCSI boards don't have a term power option so it has to be set on one of the drives.

If it doesn't work with term power enable on one device, try setting the term power on another device and see what happens. If all else fails, try get another terminator on the last plug and see what happens.

Cheers!

*EDIT*

Merlinkv beat me to it! :D
 
Thanks my friend I will try with pwr term jumper on 80pin drive and check the drive for wide/narrow jumper and report back!

I'm beginning to think the UW drive is knackered tho, but I will try installing the SCSI card in my spare PC, should be good for sh*ts n giggles if nothing else :LOL:

---------- Post added at 09:02 ---------- Previous post was at 09:00 ----------

@Orcish75,

Thanks for the info (y)

AFAIK the CSMkIII does not have any termination on the board it's self, hence why I need to use an active terminator before the board it's self :)

---------- Post added at 09:13 ---------- Previous post was at 09:02 ----------

My SCA 80-68pin adapters do not have an term pwr jumper, do I have the wrong ones?

---------- Post added at 09:19 ---------- Previous post was at 09:13 ----------

These are the same as the adapters I have:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/SCA-80-to...ing_Drive_Cables_Adapters&hash=item2eb9f8cf70
 
Unfortunately 80-pin SCA drives don't have any termination or term power options, it's all handled on the hot-swap backplane in servers. Do you have another device that you can add to the SCSI chain that has a term power option?

Cheers!
 
Term power is normally provided by the drive.

If your current setup works, then there must be power provided to the scsi bus by another drive, or the bus itself, or else the active terminator wouldn't work.

I'm not sure what would happen if you enable the terminator power on two devices, but I wouldn't be trying it...
 
Unfortunately 80-pin SCA drives don't have any termination or term power options, it's all handled on the hot-swap backplane in servers. Do you have another device that you can add to the SCSI chain that has a term power option?

Cheers!

I'm not sure if my UW SCSI-IDE bridge has this, I can check.

But looks like I just killed my spare PC with the SCSI PCI card, it booted up as far as Windows XP and then powered it's self off and will no longer switch on :eek:

The Bios has an LCD display displaying an error code 66 (even after SCSI PCI card removed) so I need to do some googling... Could just be co-incidence as it's pretty old...

I'm now reluctant to try anything further, I don't mind losing an old PC to the cause but if I killed my CSMkIII I'd be gutted.

I have one working drive to send, that'll have to do!
 
Reset the BIOS on the motherboard, it'll more than likely bring it back up again... (y)
 
Reset the BIOS on the motherboard, it'll more than likely bring it back up again... (y)

Thanks, I already tried that, I'm wondering if the PSU had failed - the SCSI drive could have been the last straw that broke the camels back so to speak!

It's only a spare PC I wasn't using so I've put it away and will investigate at a later date.

I've decided to call time on working any more with these two SCSI drives, thanks for the help guys. I've learned a few things and maybe others with similar issues will benefit if they fine this post.

As it stands I have a fully prepped and installed UW SCSI drive to send to my friend so the mission was not a total failure :)

Cheers (y)
 
I had gotten 3 of those same adapters, the 80pin to 68/50.

One of them made one of my HD's go smokey bye bye and no, nothing from the adapters was touching the drive itself and same jumper configuration as I was using on the others, might have been "the last straw that broke the camels back" as Steve pointed out but wouldn't be surprised if some soldering was messed up on the adapter, didn't look all that great of a soldering job :)
 
thats tough steve but if it is the same scsi card you tried in a pc last time then I would bin it to someone on here who maybe get some joy out of it. cripes I bet you could get a scsi pci card for under £5 or maybe someone on here can donate you one. Its always good to be able to plug any storage device from one system into another
 
thats tough steve but if it is the same scsi card you tried in a pc last time then I would bin it to someone on here who maybe get some joy out of it. cripes I bet you could get a scsi pci card for under £5 or maybe someone on here can donate you one. Its always good to be able to plug any storage device from one system into another

Thanks mate, I think I'll retire from SCSI once and for all lol. SCSI-IDE works so well and I have enough adapters here for all my SCSI capable Amiga's :LOL:
 
The clunky drive deserves a bin, sorry.

Check the label on the 80pin SCA drive, if it says HDV (High Differential Voltage) you will kill the LVD SCSI controller you hooked it in.

Otherwise grab a passtrough terminator to hook the drive in. Maintaining another SCSI drive with termination power on will help.
 
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