SCSI HDD not seen unless IDE HDD connected

[motorollin]

Thanks Thomas. I did experiment with the number of cylinders so that the overall size of the disk was just below 18.3GB, and was able to create and format partitions. I have emailed Quantum to get the actual values just in case.

I've learned a lesson - write down the geometry before doing anything :-)

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moto

[Oliver]

@ Moto

There's information on a number of Atlas drives a this Maxtor support page (you probably know they took over Quantum's hard drive division).

I think your drive is covered there, but don't know if their documentation provides the particular data you are after.  Several years ago I had to email Quantum about specs for an ancient 250MB drive, and they sent me documentation which was not provided on their website. Don't know if Maxtor will provide the same level of support though.

Good luck.

P.S. Maybe you can plug the drive into a more modern PC/Mac SCSI controller and get the specs from a drive utility.

[Thomas]

The only value you need is the "total number of sectors". All other values are calculated anyway.

total = heads * sectors * cylinders

sectors per cylinder = heads * sectors

sectors = sectors per track

heads = tracks per cylinder

block = sector (these are used as synonyms, although they should mean different things. Terms liks "sectors per block" do not make sense if you use the words as synonyms. But even AmigaDOS itself sometimes says "block" where it should actually say "sector")

capacity of the disk = total number of sectors * sector size

sector size = 512 bytes

Bye,
Thomas

[Oliver]

Hi Thomas,

Can you actually use that calculation to determine the number of sectors?

disc capacity is rated as 18,300 x 10^6 Bytes
sector size = 512 Bytes

=> #sectors=18,300x10^6/512 which is not a whole number.  

How do you use this calculation accurately?  Also, is the listed format capacity the available space to store user data, or does it include the space required for the additional information present on the disc?

Cheers

Oli

[motorollin]

@Oliver
Thanks for the link. I actually called Quantum and they told me I needed to speak to Maxtor. I called them and they directed me to the correct part of the page, so I now have the geometry information.

@Thomas
Thanks for the info! I should be able to input the correct details now. I'm going to try HDInstTool anyway as I would prefer for the geometry to be detected rather than manually entering it (feels "safer" somehow). Is it HDInst.lha on Aminet? Is 6.9 the latest version?

Thanks

--
moto

[Oliver]

motorollin wrote:
@Oliver
Thanks for the link.

My pleasure.

I called them and they directed me to the correct part of the page, so I now have the geometry information.

Cool.  Sounds like they're continuing the good customer service.  Kind of rare these days.

Oli

[Thomas]

Can you actually use that calculation to determine the number of sectors?

I would prefer to do it the other way (get the number of blocks from the data sheet and use the capacity to check if my calculations are right), but yes, it should work this way, too.

=> #sectors=18,300x10^6/512 which is not a whole number.

Yes, but it is almost a whole number. The result is 35,742,187.5. I guess the disk has 35,742,188 blocks, then the capacity is 18,300,000,256 Bytes, which is little more than 18,300 million or 18.3 billion.

Bye,
Thomas

[Oliver]

@ Thomas:  Thanks for that.  I've not been brave enough to approximate the settings that way before.  Always gone the extra yard to get the manufacturers settings (sometimes worked backwards just to check the calc as well).  I was always curious if I had missed some clue as to how to use the calc.

Oli

[motorollin]

Well I used HDInstTools which correctly determined the settings, and installed the RDB. When I installed SFS in the RDB, I was unable to select it as a filesystem to use! So I just wrote down all the geometry settings from HDInstTools, then reinstalled the disk with those settings in HDToolBox, reinstalled SFS, partitioned, and I was able to format the partitions successfully. About to start copying data over - fingers crossed! :-)

--
moto

[motorollin]

Ok I think I'm getting there. I installed SFS in the RDB of the SCSI disk, partitioned and formatted it, and copied my data over from the IDE drive. Now when I cold boot with just the SCSI hard drive connected the partitions are seen in the Early Startup screen. If I cold boot the system, it boots and setpatch reboots the machine, but then I just get a black screen with no HDD activity or floppy clicks.

I cold booted again, and booted with no startup-sequence. I could see the contents of both partitions. I typed setpatch and allowed the system to reboot, and then tried to get back to the early startup screen. Still just a black screen with no activity from the SCSI hard drive or the floppy drive. I left it well over 30 seconds to allow the IDE search to complete.

Weird thing is, if I have the IDE drive connected, I can boot from the SCSI drive fine!

Losing patience and ideas now :-(

--
moto

[Flashlab]

Have you tried using FFS?

[motorollin]

No, I was hoping to use SFS. Why would FFS be better than SFS?

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moto

[Flashlab]

Well it wouldn't be better, but it may work. I rad here somwhere that putting SFS on boot partitions could cause trouble.

[amigagr]

Flashlab wrote:
I rad here somwhere that putting SFS on boot partitions could cause trouble.

i use only sfs at both of my amigas in ide and scsi disks with no problem at all :-)

[Flashlab]

Me too, but it seems some people have trouble with it...

[motorollin]

Well it has been fine on all partitions on the IDE disk, but I'll give FFS a try just in case.

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moto