OT - SCSI Guru Help NEEDED! Please

[ishmael2k]

Hiya badthad,

To the best of my knowledge U160 drives do not have onboard termination. Some of the U2W drives do and switch over to SE when they are set to terminate. Put the active terminator at the end of the cable and plug your drive in one of the other plugs. You'll end up with one end of the cable plugged into the card, the other end having the terminator on it and the drive in between.

As to the Tekram???

Sorry as I stated I am an Adaptec type of guy....

Rb

 

[Baldy18]

Oh wait my A+ repair class last week will actually help with this. ishmael2k is right U160 devices do need termination on the cable to run at full speed. I also remember seeing something in the online manual that agreed with this assessment.

 

[BadThad]

Thanks to m2kewl and russ, I figured out all the jumpers and setup (I think). OMG, I will never mess with SCSI ever again. This is the biggest PITA I have ever seen. I am amazed anyone ever gets it running.

For starters, the Tekram manual is SUCK. They don't even talk about the jumpers, all they show is a picture with only 2 jumpers, 2 pins each. Well, there's freaking 3 jumpers and two of them that 3 pins!! No mention in the manual NOR on their website of the settings for 32-bit/64-bit PCI usage. Then there's conflicting instructions on how to connect drives and use terminators....not to mention the SPARSE info that IBM provides on the THREE sets of jumpers on their hard drive.

Now I'm trying to figure out how to get this drive partitioned and formatted. The Tekram disk has the drivers broken down into sections with drivers for all the OSes in each section, apparently based on the chipset on the card. Well, they put a freaking sticker over the chipset so you can't tell what driver set to use. I assume I need the add their DOS drivers to my partition/format boot disk. I spent another 2 hours last night trying to figure out this driver nightmare.....and I still haven't. I booted with the Tekram CDROM and it presented me with 4 choices for "Make Disk". I did figure out to use Symbios because I saw that in the cards bios when I entered it. OK, make disk. Tried to boot with the disk it made....IT'S NOT BOOTABLE.

I am about a hair from pulling all this SCSI crap outta my system and selling it. If I was using IDE I would have had ALL my apps installed and SETI crunching by now. :|

 

[BadThad]

Can someone give me the idiots guide to installing the scsi drivers on a DOS boot disk so I can partition/format my drive?

This confuses me terribly:
Tekram DOS Install


I' really starting to hate scsi!

The ONLY device on the scsi card is the hdd. The CDROMS are on my IDE.

 

[Joe O]

If i read the manual correctly, you do not need the drivers to access a hard drive on the SCSI (pronounced SCUZZY <G>) adapter. If there is an option on the card to "enable BIOS" you will probably have to choose it. During th BOOT process, the BIOS on the card will be recognized and loaded. After that all the devices will be known to the Mainboard Bios and whatever OS you have booted. The drivers are only necessary for CDROMs Scanners, tape drives etc.

On older mainboards you had to choose drive type 1 in the BIOS for a SCSI drive so it wouldnt look for an IDE, type 2 for ESDI, but I think those days are long gone. You may have to choose "BOOT from SCSI" in SOME BIOSes. But as long as you can boot from a floppy you should be able to go to FDISK and start the process.

 

[BadThad]

So you're saying that if I just boot to a dos disk then the drivers aren't needed? I can fdisk/format the drive without DOS drivers?

 

[Crazee]

Badthad,

What OS are you going to install?

 

[ishmael2k]

Whoa there grasshopper don't give up on scsi yet.

First off, I have to say again, I don't know Tekram so I really can't help there.

Secondly, you do not need drivers to partition/format your hdd.

You do need to go into whatever Tekram provides for a diagnostic program with the card (Usually you are given an option to access this when the scsi bios shows up onscreen) and do a low level format of the drive before you do anything else. This was explained to me by a scsi guru who said this basically "mates" the hdd and card. You will then need to fdisk it to set your partitions. I keep a Win95 disk handy for this, I imagine you can do it during an install of W2k/XP but I like messing with fdisk...

Next you need to use whatever OS boot disk that you are installing. Assuming it isn't Win 95 or older or a really oddball OS it should recognize the Tekram card and install the correct drivers for it. In W2k you may need to hit F6 right at the beginning to install 3rd party drivers. (Which should be provided by Tekram.)

I usually have an ide cdrom in my system and just use the W2K CDrom as a boot disk. One caveat, I have never been able to get W2k to recognize my 19160, not sure if it is because it is an oem pull or what but I just use an older 2940UW to get things rolling. (Since you have a new/retail version of the Tekram this shouldn't be a problem.)

Once the card/hdd are recognized you should be able to format the drive from within the installation and be on your way to scsi bliss. :Q

I have to agree, scsi does take a few more steps to get up and running but in my book it is well worth it.

Rb

 

[BadThad]

I'm going to install Win XP Home. I was wondering...if I boot from the XP CD will it detect and load the tekram scsi drivers automatically or, like winNT/w2k, will it F6 prompt to specify additional mass storage drivers? This is my first experience with xp too.

Thanks everyone!

 

[Joe O]

How is your CD drive attached? IDE or SCSI?

I would just try to boot from it. Set the BIOS boot order and go.

 

[BadThad]

All cdroms are on secondary IDE. The only device on the scsi adapter is a single IBM ultrastar hdd. I'm going to add an 80 gig maxtor to the primary IDE but until the OS is installed.

 

[Russ]

badthad,

If it was easy, everybody would be doing it. Since you're using IDE CD-ROM drives, it's a breeze - try getting it setup in an all SCSI system. No, you don't need to use F6 in Windows XP. It has the same SCSI driver database as Windows 2000, and the LSI/Symbios chipset (the one that is on your controller) is already built in to the OS.

EDIT: Note that it will still offer the F6 option, just don't use it.

Russ, NCNE

 

[BadThad]

First off, I once again want to thank all my teammates for their assistance...you guys are awesome!

Based on the huge amount of info given to me so far, this is my summary:

1) The hdd is connected as follows (people keep telling me diff things here):

Card------HDD-------ActiveTerminator

This cable only has 3 connectors. I was told to put the hdd on the closest connector to the adapter card and that I needed to terminate the unused cable end. Sound correct?

2) I was told to leave the hdd jumpers at their default and all will work fine since it's the ONLY scsi device in the system.

3) As far as partition/format, this is what I've been told:

- Low level format using the symbios. I didn't see that option while I was in the symbios. As a matter of fact, I didn't even see the drive listed as I had expected, i.e. IBM 36.7GB SCSI at ID7. Only one person has even mentioned low level formatting. With IDE drives LLF is not necessary out of the box, why do I need to LLF this new scsi drive?

- Boot with a Win98SE disk, select the option to run with CDROM support and the host adapter will work fine without special drivers. I have an OEM 98SE boot disk, the good one that doesn't create the RAM drive. After that I can run plain old fdisk and format. Can anyone verify this?

- Boot with the XP CDROM and it will recognize the adapter and format the drive before it will install. This would force me to use Partition Magic (which I own) to create partitions after the fact. Is this true?

- What I thought. Prepare a boot disk with CDROM drivers and the adapter DOS driver, boot with it and run fdisk/format from DOS.

This thing better perform like a mofo after all my scsi anxiety!

 

[ishmael2k]

1 Yes you have it right.

2 Should be ok. With one caveat, the ID should be set to 0 as this is the usual scsi boot disk ID.

3

A: I was told by a VERY knowledgable scsi guru that, while not 100% necessary, it is better to LLF the hdd with the card that it will be run on. You should (Again, I plead Tekram ignorance) have an option in the symbios to do this.

B: My 98SE bootdisk does not have fdisk on it, that is why I use an older 95 one that does.

C: I agree totally, with the exception that I'd partition it first. (See above) Partiton Magic would also be an option, assuming it is a new enough version to work with XP.

D: As far as performance, I doubt that I will ever go back to IDE and when I first tried it I had a lot more problems then you have had and no one to ask for help from..

Keep the faith, soon you'll here that magic jet engine of a hdd whine up to speed and all the dogs within a block will begin to howl and you'll know you have reached scsi Nirvana.....

Whew I was afraid I lost all of this....


Rob

 

[ishmael2k]

Ok while waiting for AT to come back I went ahead and d/led the Tekram manual on that card.. Kind of cheesy to me.. Sorry I had to say it, some of the info in that manual is way outdated...

Anyway it does show a LLF utility so the choice is yours. You will most likely be fine not doing a LLF.

I'll be away from the PC most of the rest of the night but will check in occaisionally.

Rb

 

[Russ]

I've never done an LLF on a fresh drive. It's only necessary on a previously used drive that had a logical format done with a different SCSI controller.

As far as ID goes, 0 is the usual - and recommended - choice, but if it is the only disk in the system, it will boot off other IDs just fine.

Russ, NCNE

 

[BadThad]

Thanks Rob. Well, in about an hour the battle begins once again, LOL.

LMAO@ the Dogs will howl comment. HAHAHAHA

 

[BadThad]

Thanks again Russ!

 

[ishmael2k]

Yup, Russ is right.

One thing though, it really is a good idea, and habit, to number your boot drive 0. Once you are in this habit you won't be surprised some day by a non-booting system to discover you added a drive that was numbered lower than your previous boot drive.

Also some scsi cards have a boot menu that specifies which drive to boot off from and the default is always 0.

My Quantum Atlas 10k does sound rather like a small turbine winding up. Once it reaches speed it is almost completely silent though..

Well back to the kitchen... :Q (Cooking for our annual wild game dinner, just got done getting the baked potatoes ready, two others are doing up the crawdads. The chukkars are ready, I think I'll start on the elk or Musk Ox... Got to get the 'gator ready also.. )


Back in an hour or so...

Rob

 

[m2kewl]

<< Well back to the kitchen... :Q (Cooking for our annual wild game dinner, just got done getting the baked potatoes ready, two others are doing up the crawdads. The chukkars are ready, I think I'll start on the elk or Musk Ox... Got to get the 'gator ready also.. ) Back in an hour or so... Rob >>



Damn! Can I come over?

EDIT: badthad - whoever's got scsi has been through this routine, some more painful then others What fun would it be if it was handed to ya in a silver platter? You just got to have patience, and it's well worth having over IDE any day. For example, I can transfer 2gb files from one drive to another in about 2.3 minutes, and running my DAT backup...can't do that with IDE w/o a coffee break

 

[ishmael2k]

Ahhhh done for the night and getting ready to head home..


Sure can 2kewl. Tomorrow night at 6:30pm, Shelby MI.

As of right now we have the following:
Musk Ox roast
Russian Boar BBQs
Buffalo Nickles (Like Chicken nuggets)
Chukkar wraps (Chukkar breast meat wrapped in bacon... ummm ummm)
Chukkar hot wings (Tasty but tiny.)
Chukkar Chili (Jury is still out)
Venison Chili (umm ummm)
Pan Fried venison
Deep fried 'gator, trout,pike,crappies,perch,and some generic fish..
Elk BBQs
Cajun 'gator (Umm umm)
Duck bites (Mixture of duck and sausage in bite sized balls. Breaded and fried... ummmmm)
Venison raviloi
Cajun Crawfish pasta
Baked patatoe bar
Home baked pies (Bunches!)
Coffee, punch and water.

There is more but I am too tired to remember and it is to far to walk there and back...

Anyway, badthad, any luck???? ( Keeping it on topic you know!)

Heading for home... Back tomorrow!

Rb

 

[BadThad]

OK....this really BLOWZ! :|

I got the drive partitioned and formatted with a win98SE boot disk and good old fdisk. Every was looking good. Then I started loading XP and the install would go all the way to the point "starting windows" (still in the initial blue sceen part) and it would hang. I then put the LSI driver on a floppy and used "specify mass storage controller [MSC] F6", it took the Win2k driver (they have NO XP driver) and hung at the exact same "starting windows". At that point, I gave up on XP and went to Win2k. Win2k got to the exact same place and hung (I did specify MSC using a floppy)....then it gave me a BSOD "inaccessable_boot_device".

The controller seems to work fine. It ID's the drive on boot and the hard drive is brand new. The drive partitioned and formatted no problem. I downloaded the only driver available on Tekrams website. WTF?

 

[Russ]

badthad,

Do not use Tekram's driver; use the native Windows driver. I had exactly the same problem with Windows 2000 installs. Would hang on bootup with the Tekram driver and an inacessible boot device message. Also, unless you have a specific reason for doing so, I would not setup the drive using Win98. Just start with no partition and no format, boot off the XP CD and let it set everything up.

Russ, NCNE

 

[BadThad]

Russ - Too late now. I already partitioned and formatted the drive. I tried letting XP use it's own drivers without intervention and it froze...I tried it 3 times and it froze every time at "starting windows". Then I looked on tekrams site and it said to use the Win2k driver, worth a shot.

I just tried Win2k again without specifying the driver and it said "setup did not find any hard drives installed on this computer". Is there something in the symbios im missing? There's not sh!t in that bios. Here's what it's set at (default):

There's only 2 menu choices, <boot adapter list> and <global properties>.

Under <boot adapter list> it has 2 devices listed:

Adapter..............PCI Bus...........Dev/func.........port........num

53C1010-33......2.................50..................D800........YES
53C1010-33......2.................51..................D40..........YES

Then, if select one of these devices, they have the exact same properties:

SCSI Parity -yes
Host SCSI ID - 7
Scan order - low to high
Removable media support - NONE
CHS Mapping - SCSI PNP Mapping
Spin up delay - 2 sec
Secondary cluster server - NO
Termination control - AUTO

Under <global properties>

Pause when boot alert displayed - NO
Boot Info Disp mode - verbose
Negotiate with devices - SUPPORTED
Video - color
Support Interupt - HOOK INTERUPT, the default

That's ALL THERE is in the adapters BIOS. When the system boots, it shows the IBM drive on ID6.

 

[Russ]

HMM...I think I may have an idea why it's crapping all over. Check the manual for the adapter and see if it's preset for ID7. My U2Ws are. If yours is, it's trying to force the hard drive off of 7, and would likely cause it to puke during the driver load. It also explains why you have two devices listed in the BIOS with the same specs.

If that's the case, you'll need to jumper the drive to a different ID.

Russ, NCNE