Formatting an AMIGA SCSI drive on a PC?

[Ral-Clan]

Hi,

I was given an older PCI SCSI Ultrawide card (Adaptec AAA-131).  I have been wondering what I could do with it, then I thought - perhaps I could use UAE to set up and format SCSI hard drives connected to my Windows XP PC for use in a real Amiga.  I know this is possible as others have done it.

However, I looked up the AAA-131 card online and it appeared there are two problems:

- The card was not supported under Windows XP.  However, some people have reported that using the Win2000 drivers worked.  Fine.

- Although I know a lot about early 1990s Amiga SCSI, I know next to nothing about SCSI RAID.  I just want to use this card as "normal" SCSI controller card (I don't want to set up an array).  I just want to control one hard drive - and perhaps occassionally a SCSI scanner that I used to use on my Amiga.  Is it possible for a SCSI RAID controller to function as a "normal" SCSI hard drive controller?

The description of the card is here:

http://www.adaptec.com/en-us/support/_eol/aaa_raid/aaa-131/

and

http://www.ascendtech.us/adaptec-scsi-raid-array-1000-controller_i_cntsadtaaa131b.aspx

The line that has me confused in the product description is: "...for systems that already have embedded SCSI or an installed add-in host adapter for low speed devices".  This makes me think that the AAA-131 can't be used as a regular SCSI controller if it requires the system to already have an embedded SCSI controller installed.

I do realize that this card has 68 pin connectors externally, so I'll have to get an adapter.  But it does have a 50 pin header internally, too.

[Piru]

- Although I know a lot about early 1990s Amiga SCSI, I know next to nothing about SCSI RAID.  I just want to use this card as "normal" SCSI controller card (I don't want to set up an array).  I just want to control one hard drive - and perhaps occassionally a SCSI scanner that I used to use on my Amiga.  Is it possible for a SCSI RAID controller to function as a "normal" SCSI hard drive controller?

Yes. It would be quite rare to have a SCSI controller that only supported RAID. The description for this card says:

"Drives can be supported in array or non-array configurations"

As for the confusing quote, the whole sentence is:
"high-performance choice for systems that already have embedded SCSI or an installed add-in host adapter for low speed devices."
Meaning that the point of getting this adapter was to get faster controller than you had before.

[Thomas]

- Although I know a lot about early 1990s Amiga SCSI, I know next to nothing about SCSI RAID.

If a device is called "RAID controller" it usually means that a RAID is an option, not a requirement.

The line that has me confused in the product description is: "...for systems that already have embedded SCSI or an installed add-in host adapter for low speed devices".

This probably means that it is not bootable, i.e. you have to boot from another controller and this one is only accessible once Windows drivers have been loaded.


I would just try it out. Put it in and see what Windows says about it. If drivers are needed, try to find some and install them. Then connect a harddrive and check what Windows disk management tells about it. If disk management sees the hdd, WinUAE should, too.

[Ral-Clan]

I would just try it out. Put it in and see what Windows says about it. If drivers are needed, try to find some and install them. Then connect a harddrive and check what Windows disk management tells about it. If disk management sees the hdd, WinUAE should, too.

I will try it.  I hope that a card such as this, which designed primarily for hard drive arrays deals well non-drive devices too, like the scanner I intend to try.

[Ral-Clan]

Okay, I tried it.

Software wise - it worked.  The card was recognized by Windows XP and the Windows 2000 drivers installed.

But hardware wise, there was a conflict.   The BIOS on my Thinkcentre P4 computer complained of a PCI/PNP Error Resource Conflict - PCI Mass Storage Controller on Motherboard Bus: 04, Device 04, Function: 00

I think there was some sort of conflict between the motherboard's PCI bus controller and the one on the RAID card.  Adaptec has the following to say which I *mostly* understand but not enough to see if there is a solution:

Incompatibility with PCI2.0 Motherboard PCI-TO-PCI Bridge

The AAA-13x uses an industry standard PCI 2.1 compliant PCI-to-PCI bridge. Certain systems use PCI-to-PCI bridges on the MOTHERBOARD to get additional PCI add-in slots. Some earlier systems used PCI 2.0 compliant PCI-to-PCI bridges(e.g. Digital part numbers DEC21050 or DEC21052) to get these additional PCI slots. If AAA-13x is installed on BUS1, the secondary side of a PCI 2.0 PCI-to-PCI bridge an incompatibility may exist. It is recommended that the AAA-13x be installed on BUS 0 (the primary side).

[Ral-Clan]

OKAY!  I plugged the SCSI RAID card into a different PCI slot (away from the AGP slot) and now it works (partially - read below).

The card now is recognized by the BIOS and boots fine.  I've installed the Windows 2000 drivers and all appears to functioning fine.  I was able to format one SCSI drive but two other drives proved problematic (A Barracude 4MB drive slowed the booting of Windows to a snail's crawl and the other (and old 80mb drive) wouldn't show up in drive management so I couldn't even format it.

Finally a 500MB seagate drive worked.

Another note:

I seem to have lost the ability to put the computer into SLEEP mode since installing the SCSI card - I read about this on other forums.

Not sure if I want to keep the card installed if I can't put the computer into sleep mode as I use that mode quite a lot.

[Ral-Clan]

Another note:

I seem to have lost the ability to put the computer into SLEEP mode since installing the SCSI card - I read about this on other forums.

Not sure if I want to keep the card installed if I can't put the computer into sleep mode as I use that mode quite a lot.

PS: Windows XP Disk Management Tool doesn't see the drive as connected either, so I can't even format it from there.