Re: Adaptec 2940UW failure with current rescue disks; Buslogic BT-958 succeeds.
Jameson Burt <jameson@mnsinc.com> writes:
| Debian rescue disks have supported my Adaptec 2940UW disk for 1 1/2
| years.
[snip]
| I happen to still have a bo rescue disk from 11/17/97: it works with
| my Adaptec 2940UW.
|
| I got my Adaptec 2940UW two years ago with a new Dell computer. A
| sticker on the back says DP/N 00094974 RevA00, so it may have been an
| early 2940UW. The error messages I get (I forget exactly) repeat 2
| lines infinitely concerning scsi.
[snip]
| Eventually, I succeeded doing what lilo would have done by using two
| menu items from the rescue disk installation: I mounted the good /
| (ended up on /target), and I wrote to floppy. I had pulled scsi disk
| 0 from a daisy chain of three scsi devices, consequently I needed to
| rerun lilo [I understand new /dev names in future kernels will not
| require rerunning lilo]. So, when all else fails, carefully avoiding
| a new install yet using some of the installation menu entries can get
| Debian working.
|
| A week later, swapping a Mylex/Buslogic BT-958 for my Adaptec 2940, I
| had no problems using current hamm rescue disks!
|
| I am not concerned about this problem; I do not seek a solution since
| I have a very old rescue disk. Still, I welcome comments in the
| interest of others and my understanding.
The 2940 drivers (aic7xxx) are undergoing some pretty major
changes. Adaptec has recently started cooperating with the Linux
developers and it's hoped that this will, eventually, mean better
drivers. Unfortunately, this is a pretty recent development (starting
with kernel 2.0.34) and so the drivers aren't reliable on all the
hardware.
They're getting there though. I used to have problems with devices on
my 2940UW disappearing intermittently. Sometimes I'd boot and my tape
drive wouldn't show up, sometimes it'd be the drive with my root
partition that wouldn't show up. Needless to say it was pretty
annoying. But I downloaded the kernel 2.0.35 source, applied the
latest development version of the aic7xxx driver
(ftp://ftp.dialnet.net/pub/linux/aic7xxx/testing) and I haven't had a
problem since.
So, the moral of the story is, be patient. And if you have the time,
try out the latest aic7xxx patches and if you have problems report
them to the aic7xxx mailing list. The mailing list can be subscribed
to by sending email to majordomo@freebsd.org (don't let the name fool
you, all the traffic I've seen on the group has been related to Linux,
not FreeBSD) with the line "subscribe aic7xxx" in the message body.
Gary Hennigan
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