Re: AHA-2940 SCSI won't boot
On Tue, 23 Feb 1999, Kent West wrote:
: I asked this a week or two ago, but am still having trouble.
:
: As a recap, I have a Gateway2000 P5-200 with an Adaptec AHA-2940
: Ultra/Ultraw SCSI host adapter with four 2GB Seagate ST32155W drives. DOS
: does fine with it; Win95 does fine; WinNT does fine.
Non-Linux-like OSs seem to be "tolerant" of SCSI trouble that will bring
Linux (and FreeBSD for that matter) to its knees.
: When I try to install Hamm, Slink, or Potato, with the standard images or
: with the boot images from http://www.debian.org/~adric/aic7xxx/, I either
: get an infinite loop of trying to reset channell 0 (or something similar)
: or I get a total lock-up just after the point in the boot-up where 419
: instructions are downloaded to the adapter.
Adaptec cards can be tough, particularly cards of this vintage.
However, I've struggled mightily with ST32155W drives, too. Termination
is almost always "wrong" from the factory.
Some ideas:
Use a boot kernel with the aha7xxx driver as the only SCSI HBA driver -
all are compiled in by default and this can really piss off some
Adaptecs. You should find, steal, or borrow such a kernel - your
chances of success without it are slim :/
Try getting just one drive to work; add more drives after success. Use
different cables, if you have extras.
Make sure termination and cabling is absolutely correct! I assume
you're using 68 pin connectors here. Look for bent pins in the cable.
Make sure each drive uses active termination, with only the last drive
terminated. Throw away any passive terminators. If you're using 50 to
68 pin header converters (usually seen on CD-ROMS or non-UW devices),
throw those away too! Connect 50 pin devices via the 50 pin HBA
connector (I see the "converters" used far too often).
Are you using delayed spin? I prefer making the controller "start" each
drive during the scan. Four UW drives spinning up at the same time
could cause problems.
Turn off drive translation in the controller. Don't turn off parity -
if turning parity off gives better results then something is hosed
anyway :)
SCSI isn't magic; you just need the right phase of the moon, some
incantations, etc. :)
Hopefully this gives you some ideas ...
--
Nathan Norman
MidcoNet 410 South Phillips Avenue Sioux Falls, SD
mailto:finn@midco.net http://www.midco.net
finger finn@home.midco.net for PGP Key: (0xA33B86E9)
Reply to: