Re: Adaptec 3940/3940W for standard Debian 1.3 install?
On Sat, 11 Jul 1998, Chris Evans wrote:
[ snip ]
: I think those two drives and the CDROM were seen and used fine
: by my first install. The odd thing is that the install also detected
: the three (I said it was an odd box!) disk drives on the second SCSI
: channel of the Adaptec but wouldn't format them, complaining
: about a "bad partition table" (that may not have been word perfect).
: I managed to get a bit more info. that seemed to say that
: partitions weren't falling on the heads/tracks it thought they should.
: The install wouldn't do anything with them.
:
: The drives are two Seagates, an ST41650 and an ST42100 and a
: Quantum Fireball ST4.3S.
Will this machine be Linux only, or dual boot? If it's Linux only I
suggest you turn off drive translation on the Adaptec controller. It
seems to do more harm then good where Linux is concerned. Only DOS and
other operating systems not so smart about hardware need drive
translation anyway. Linux can handle the large number of cylinders seen
on SCSI drives.
Also, use `fdisk' rather than `cfdisk'. The interface is a bit more
cryptic, but it can handle "weird" partition tables which cfdisk cannot.
I would say that what's happening is that Linux is detecting the correct
geometry, but the drives were partitioned originally with translation
enabled ... hence the errors about partitions beginning and ending in
odd places. I've seen this a lot.
: I have two hypotheses:
: 1) That the Debian install repartitioning software doesn't like
: partition information left by NT and those drives were still NTFS
: formatted whereas the two drives recognised and reformatted OK
: had been converted to FAT when I was getting enough DOS
: access to the CDROM to start the install off.
Nope, see above :)
: 2) That Debian 1.3 default SCSI drivers don't work correctly
: (perhaps I have to tell them something as a command line
: parameter?) with the 3940/3940W second channel despite
: apparently seeing the drives that are on it.
Don't think so - though I've never used a 3940 I was under the
impression that it appeared to be 2 2940s. If it's detecting your
drives and not complaining about termination or truly weird errors
(bus timed out, etc.) I'd say you're ok here.
: I'm low level reformatting all the drives at the Adaptec hardware
: level (slooo..ow) prior to reinstalling DOS, windows, adaptec DOS
: handlers and then restarting the install of Debian. I am planning to
: make sure all the drives can be DOS partitioned and formatted
: using the Adaptec DOS/Win3.1 drivers prior to the Debian install
: and I'm happy to be installing again as there were things I got
: wrong about the network card and as the file system/partition
: organisation I chose that time was daft. However, I'd hate to end up
: doing all this umpteen times so I'd really appreciate any advice.
I think the low level formatting is a waste of time, though it can't
hurt. However, if you DOS partition the drives you'll end up with the
same problem since DOS doesn't understand the real drive geometry. The
Adaptec "lies" to DOS about the geometry and does translation. You
don't want it.
: I'd rather not move all the drives to the first SCSI channel as the
: cabling is a nightmare to do and as I know this arrangement has
: worked.
It should work fine once you get a decent partition table on there.
Again, use `fdisk' rather than `cfdisk' and just delete the "bad"
partitions.
--
Nathan Norman
MidcoNet - 410 South Phillips Avenue - Sioux Falls, SD 57104
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