Setting up SCSI HDs

The biggest i got to work on my GVP controller was 4.2 GB justin ...

i forget which rom it was tho..i think it was the last non guru rom

The latest non GURU should be the 4.15...

i have 4.15:)

about 4gb is as big as it will see.

no point slipping a bigger one in Justin

@Juv

its quite likely a termination issue.

I have had all the GVP controllers here "see" any size of Hard Disk, including a 36.1GB 10K SCSI Cheetah - although accessing anything past 3.67GB proved impossible.

IMHO I wouldn't bother with Faaaastprep, instead use Workbench 3.1's HDInstalTools, or prep the drive on a PC under CW3.9, you can then format the disk under PFS3 for better performance than FFS

You can install any size of SCSI HD you have, Juzza.

Just, as Zetr0 already said, you can't use anything that is over 3.67Gb, even partially.

Best option is doing a little calculation when installing the drive: let the Amiga detect the drive geometry and then start to lower the number of cylinders detected.

Example: if a 9Gb drive shows 99 cylinders, lowering the declared number to 40 cylinders will show a 3.66Gb drive.

Of course, the leftover will not be used at all, but at least the drive will work no matter what.

Now, for your problem, I agree with Zetr0 again: you have a cable or termination problem. The SCA80 SCSI models often does not have built-in termination and even when they have, they don't like to be hooked to a chain with passive termination.

Then the only choice is grabbing a 50 female to 68 female gender changer and a 68 cable with a built-in terminator.

Then you hook this to the Amiga controller this way:

TERM---Amiga_controller (with gender changer)--Terminated_HD.

If in need for a picture I can take one from my A2000.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by rkauer

You can install any size of SCSI HD you have, Juzza.

Just, as Zetr0 already said, you can't use anything that is over 3.67Gb, even partially.

Best option is doing a little calculation when installing the drive: let the Amiga detect the drive geometry and then start to lower the number of cylinders detected.

Example: if a 9Gb drive shows 99 cylinders, lowering the declared number to 40 cylinders will show a 3.66Gb drive.

Of course, the leftover will not be used at all, but at least the drive will work no matter what.

Now, for your problem, I agree with Zetr0 again: you have a cable or termination problem. The SCA80 SCSI models often does not have built-in termination and even when they have, they don't like to be hooked to a chain with passive termination.

Then the only choice is grabbing a 50 female to 68 female gender changer and a 68 cable with a built-in terminator.

Then you hook this to the Amiga controller this way:

TERM---Amiga_controller (with gender changer)--Terminated_HD.

If in need for a picture I can take one from my A2000.

---

ok so i may need a dumb person step by step here.

i have an 18 gig 80 pin drive in the gvp connected with a sca adaptor, there are no jumpers on the board (it has jumpers but none are on), then from the external port there is an external scsi enclosure with an external terminator (supplied by johnim)

when the amiga is turned on i can here the hard drive power up and it sounds like it is running a self test.

hdtoolbox (latest one from aminet) finds no devices:(

---------- Post added at 23:04 ---------- Previous post was at 22:47 ----------

on the sca adaptor i have

led
syn
dly
mtr
id3
id2
id1
id0

all of these are off at the moment

so your hard drive has ID 0...

yes:thumbsup:

---------- Post added 27th August 2012 at 00:04 ---------- Previous post was 26th August 2012 at 23:13 ----------

anyone seen these for sale anywhere?

SCA-8050

http://www.ainex.jp/img/large/sca-8050_s.jpg


it has a jumper for termination:thumbsup:

I have put one (back) in the box with the 4.1GB HDD buddy =)


I would also suggest that you check the 18GB drive for a jumper labelled SE - (Single Ended) and enable this if its not.

The GVP installation seems fine to me.

The problem seems to lie in the HD itself. As Keith pointed, get a few mini-jumpers and put three on the HD (the 80>68/80>50 adaptor does not have those) jumpers named:

-SE. this will tell the HD it is the single unit on the chain and it will behave like that;

-TP. Termination Power: will give power to the internal termination pack;

-TE. Termination Enabled: will terminate the device as the last one in the chain.

a good guide for these converters would be nice, well it help explain a lot to me

so anyone up for writing a guide for the orical section then ??

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by rkauer

The GVP installation seems fine to me.

The problem seems to lie in the HD itself. As Keith pointed, get a few mini-jumpers and put three on the HD (the 80>68/80>50 adaptor does not have those) jumpers named:

-SE. this will tell the HD it is the single unit on the chain and it will behave like that;

-TP. Termination Power: will give power to the internal termination pack;

-TE. Termination Enabled: will terminate the device as the last one in the chain.

---

i don't have these on any of the 4 drives i have here:(

Code of the drives, please? I can search for available jumpers on teh interwebz.

make and model of the drive Justin?.

I formatted and used a 4.2gb 80 pin scsi on my GVP 030 in a 2000 for over a year ...

HDtools found the drive when install3.1 would not...

@ justin i use that adaptor too.

@Justin: can you stop fixing my Lamborghini and come back here to answer us?

I'm not in a hurry, can use the Ferrari while waiting. /crazy dream mode off

oops

HP BD03685A24 36.4GB 10K
HP BF01886384 18.2GB 15K
HP ST373207LC 18.0GB 10K
HP BD0728A4B4 72.8GB 10K

all 80 pin :)

None that is not like a jet engine taking off?:blased:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by rkauer

None that is not like a jet engine taking off?:blased:

---

lol nope, just what you see:)

Edit: the ST373207LC (it is not HP, it is a Seagate drive. HP does not make HD) have at least two jumper blocks, one in the front of the drive and another marked as J2 in the middle of the logic board, on the lateral.

You must use micro-jumpers for this task.

Looking in the board with a magnifier you'll see those micro jumpers.

You simply have to put two jumpers on it, at the extremities of this header. The nearest of the front of the drive is the SE jumper, the other near the cable connector is the TP (termination power). Don't mess with the others.

Oh, this drive does not have internal termination, you must use an external termination.

---------- Post added at 18:25 ---------- Previous post was at 18:05 ----------

The HP BF01886384 18.2GB 15K is in fact a Fujitsu mas15krpm/MAS3184NC and it have built-in termination power.

Check the jumper terminals on page 78, as this drive can be used in narrow SCSI natively!

Of course, set the drive as SCSI ID0 to save the little hard to get mini jumper blocks. (HINT!)

the 1st picture is the ST373207LC

the 2nd one is the BF018863B4

i still don't see any jumpers for I am blind Pugh:cool:

@mods,

please can we separate out the hard drive info to a new thread in the oracle section?


@thread, what size is a mini pc jumper?



thanks, Justin

Odd! There is no configuration jumpers on the pictures, but manual say it must have...:blased:

few it is not just me then:)

Hi to all :)

@mjnurney, maybe this doc http://www.bettssoftware.com/docs/scsi-cheat-sheet.pdf can help you a bit?

so, Davideo has very kindly sent me a Seagate ST39102LC (thanks m8)

what jumpers do i need to enable?

choices are

.. pin 1 pin 2 to scsi bus

..

.. reserved

.. parity disable

.. write protect

.. motor start enable

.. delay mtr start

.. force single ended


ta :)

anyone?:(

Hiya mate

Defnitely Enable motor start and Force single ended mode....
Give it a whirl then....

TC ;)

aarrrrggghhhhh!!!!!

did that and the bloody trace by the psu connector just let out the magic smoke:o


soldering iron is heated up as i type this:(:Doh:

---------- Post added at 19:18 ---------- Previous post was at 18:43 ----------

phew ok so it now turns on again and is showing the memory:):thumbsup:

@Juvvie

Bluddy hell mate - you don't half have some ruff luck :Doh:

Is the HD working for you?

Dave G :cool:

well it spins up, but still hdinstall finds nothing:(

i think it is something i am doing/not doing, need to play some more;)

it could be that i don't have enough (1) of the teeny tiny tinsey jumpers

I've just checked I haven't got any of the little blighters :picard Only the larger ones.

I'll keep my fingers crossed for you matey :thumbsup:

Dave G :cool:

hi justin are these the smaller ones

http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/...roducts_id=680

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by johnim

hi justin are these the smaller ones

http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/...roducts_id=680

---

hiya buddy, are you sure? they seem to be too big according to the sizes?

thats why i asked ?

i looked on other bay but only us have micro 1s

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Jumpers-10...item43aa76f8f5

smaller 2mm

normal 2.54mm

sorry buddy i mis-read your post:oops:

im confused now

maplin have

http://www.maplin.co.uk/2.54mm-0.1-i...-jumpers-34146

which are these

i just measured the pins and they are 2mm apart, so i think your 1st call was correct:)

:thumbsup:

@Juvvie

Just been googling around and found the manual for the drive. See here http://www.seagate.com/support/disc/...csi/29240c.pdf

Page 71 states

Quote:

---

9.8 Terminator requirements

Caution:

These drives do not have onboard internal terminators. The user, systems integrator or host equipment manufacturer must provide a terminator arrangement external to the drive when termination is required. For LW drives, terminator modules can be purchased that plug between the SCSI I/O cable and the drive I/O connector or on the end of a short I/O cable stub extending past the last cable connector. LC drives are designed to be plugged into a backpanel connector without cabling.

9.9 Terminator power

LW drives

You can configure terminator power from the drive to the SCSI bus or have the host adaptor or other device supply terminator power to the external terminator. See Section 8.1 for illustrations that show how to place jumpers for this configuration.

LC drives

These drives cannot furnish terminator power because no conductors in the 80-pin I/O connector are devoted to terminator power.

---

Another good document on SCSI in general http://www.datapro.net/techinfo/scsi_doc.html

Dave G :cool:

well that'll be the problem then:lol: no termination!

ok so back to the drawing board and looking for a 50 pin scsi hard drive:)

is this an 80 or a 68 pin connector ??

80 pin dude

ahh, only thing I got then is one of those things that plug on the back and make it 50pin but never got em work

lol yep same here

Those SCA80 models are a pain in that place to make work.

You must have another device to provide termination power (they usually does not have the option) and a couple of active 68 pin terminators (those 50pin active terminators will not work), plus a pair of cable adaptors (one 68 to SCA80, one 50pin to 68) and a 68 wires cable.

A few Amiga controllers have termination power built-in (some A3000 have it).

Remember to remove the terminator packs from the Amiga controller as SCSI can't use three terminators on the same cable!

The system must look this way:

Term--Controller (with 50>68 adaptor)--HD (with 68>SCA80 adaptor)--term

Surely you'll only need a 68-pin terminator if you're using a wide SCSI controller to begin with (So, a Cyberstorm III or CSPPC on an Amiga)

If your SCSI controller has only a 50pin connector, you only need a 50pin terminator. I used this setup on my A4000 with both a Z3 Fastlane, then later the CSII SCSI module.

Using a 50pin ribbon: Controller--->SCA Hard Disk (with 50-80pin adapter)--->50pin CD drive (with termination enabled)

:thumbsup:

@Andy
Some wide drives won't work in narrow mode unless they sense bias voltage on the (unused) high byte of the bus, in that case rkauer's setup is required (if it's an SE drive, this can be bypassed by placing it last on the narrow bus with a cheap passive adapter and setting TP and TE on the drive, but this is rarely if ever applicable on SCA models).
If one's lucky to have a well behaving unit, it will simply negotiate in narrow mode and ignore the high byte.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by BLTCON0

@Andy
Some wide drives won't work in narrow mode unless they sense bias voltage on the (unused) high byte of the bus, in that case rkauer's setup is required (if it's an SE drive, this can be bypassed by placing it last on the narrow bus with a cheap passive adapter and setting TP and TE on the drive, but this is rarely if ever applicable on SCA models).
If one's lucky to have a well behaving unit, it will simply negotiate in narrow mode and ignore the high byte.

---

I guess I must've just got lucky with my SCA hard drives then! :lol:

Thanks for the update, useful to know should I ever run into problems with SCA disks.

:thumbsup:

Andy, hardly a 50pin terminator will work on UW devices as the terminator will lack the high bytes termination.

You can use a DVD or CD-ROM in the chain, but only if unterminated and in the middle of the cable.