Seagate SCSI Drive Problem w/A2000

[Tsargon]

Hi.

I have a recently purchased a Seagate Barracuda ST12550N SCSI drive that I'm trying to hook into the SCSI chain on my A2000 system.  Currently, there are two SCSI devices already there, a Maxtor 7245SR as SCSI ID 0 and a Quantum Fireball (I don't recall the model) at SCSI ID 6.  The A2000 is outfitted with a GVP G-Force 030 (50 MHz 68030 w/68882 and 16 MB RAM).  I've assigned the Barracude a SCSI ID of 2 and everytime either hdtoolbox or FaastPrep hits SCSI ID 2, it just stops and locks the machine with the harddrive's light on.  Changing the SCSI ID on the drive (I tried 1, 3 and 4) seems to have any effect.  The drive is in an external enclosure with the Maxtor drive.  The Maxtor is self terminating while the Barracuda is not, but I do have an external SCSI terminator for the enclosure.  I have tried all the major combinations of jumpers with no luck.  I've had success with another Maxtor (7213SR) and two IBM units (DCAS-34330 & DCAS-32160) on the chain but this Barracuda is stumping me!

Any ideas or suggestions?

Thanks!

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Tsargon

[Olecranon]

One thing I might try is running the seagate by itself, and then see if you can get prepped and formatted.  At least you'll remove the other drives and possible termination issues as a source of the problem.

Did you get the drive off ebay?  I'm batting about 50% when it comes to getting drives I've purchased on ebay to working.  The way the system just locks when it hits the SCSI ID makes me believe its a drive related issue.

[Amiga4k]

Suggest you go to www.seagate.com and enter the model #.
Look at the config page, and verify all the jumpers are correct. It really might be that simple.

Also, Olecranon is very wise. Try the drive as a stand alone. That way you verify the ID #.

[Tsargon]

I just tried that with the same results.  My next attempt will be to remove the internal drive and hookup the questionable drive internally to see if it might be having issues communicating across the external cable.

And yes, I did get the drive off eBay.  Thankfully it was cheap because it's starting to look more and more like a dud!

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Tsargon

[Tsargon]

Thanks for the advice.  I did visit there already and got the jumpers settings and attempted all the one that should be valid with my system configuration.

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Cesi

[Zac67]

Any way to check the drive on another system?

Jumpers:
The Enable Motor Start must be set (does it spin up?). Have you removed the drive's terminators? Try disabling term power.

It's not an ST12550ND, is it? That's HVD and won't work.

[Tsargon]

Zac67 wrote:

Any way to check the drive on another system?

I have an old Linux box with SCSI, but it's wide SCSI, so it will take some doing to test.  I think I'll attempt that over the weekend.

Jumpers:
The Enable Motor Start must be set (does it spin up?). Have you removed the drive's terminators? Try disabling term power.

Yep, the jumper is set (pins 11 & 12, BTW) and the drive does spin up with no issue.  The drive does not have terminators; I've been relying either on the other driver or an external terminator.  The manual says that there are four valid combinations of J01 for the N and W drives for terminator power.  I've tried all four with no luck.

It's not an ST12550ND, is it? That's HVD and won't work.

Nope... It's a straight N... at least that's what the label says!

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Tsargon

[Zac67]

http://www.seagate.com/support/disc/specs/scsi/st12550n.html says it's got terminator packs (passive) that need to be removed - or are they already missing?

Term power is best set to 1-2 (default), that way - with terminators removed - it'll leave pin 26 alone.

[Murray_2]

Hi,
I had a similiar problem I think.  Since you mentioned Fasstprep, I assume the G-Force has a hard drive controller on it or you have another GVP controller.  I did not make progress until I partitioned and formatted the drive on another machine (was actually with OS 3.9 but might have worked with an earlier version).  Then put the drive back into the A2000 and used GVP's faast prep programme to confirm the partitions.  Hope this helps.  

[CLS2086]

What is the GVP scsi rom version ?  :-)

[Amiga4k]

CLS2086,
The GVP scsi rom version is not an issue. He has successfully used the card with other drives.
Tsargon,
That nature of scsi is "rules must be followed, but some rules are written with an eraser close at hand". Some drives never work with some controllers. Seagate is notorious for being stubborn.

I have several 1-3 gig SCSI drives on my bench right now. All have passed. Send me an email about prepping a drive for you.                     BTW - what did you pay for that 2 gig drive?

[Tsargon]

Yeah... the drive must be dead.  I tried it on a Linux box with no success and I tried it internally in the A2000, again with no success.

I only paid $10.50 for it, so it's really no big loss.

A friend recently donated a whole slew of SCSI equipment including a 2 GB IBM drive, a 4 GB IBM drive and a 4x CD-ROM all of which are working fine and integrated into my machine!

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Tsargon