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SCSI drives not being detected

N

nexrus

Junior Member
the problem, basically:
The host adapter is recognized on its default ID #7, any drives attached are not.
It scans all IDs but just shows No Device in all but the adapter. Naturally I cant boot an OS from the disk(s).

hardware:
2 x COMPAQ 18,2 GB 10K RPM Wide Ultra 3 SCSI (model BD018745A3)
1 x Adaptec AHA 2940UW - Storage controller - Ultra Wide SCSI - 40 MBps - PCI
2 x terminators for SCSI cable, "S/E ACTIVE" and "ULTRA-2 LVD/SE"

analysis
OkOk, so I figure the adaptec card cant handle LVD, which again the HDDs are. Im pretty lost here, very little experience with SCSI. I have two different looking terminators and a bunch of jumpers on the HDD: ID0-ID3, WRITE PROT, START CMD, NARROW/WIDE, DIFFSENS, N.C, IDD RESET, LED and TERM PWR EN.

questions
  • Starting with the terminators, they look different, which one should I use?
  • Jumpers, if indeed the card doesnt support this disc which is LVD, can it be put into some other "mode" with jumpers?
  • Am I missing a config setting in the SCSI BIOS perhaps? pretty much all are defaulted.
  • Anything else I should be thinking of, any ideas?
 
Originally posted by: nexrus
the problem, basically:
The host adapter is recognized on its default ID #7, any drives attached are not.
It scans all IDs but just shows No Device in all but the adapter. Naturally I cant boot an OS from the disk(s).

hardware:
2 x COMPAQ 18,2 GB 10K RPM Wide Ultra 3 SCSI (model BD018745A3)
1 x Adaptec AHA 2940UW - Storage controller - Ultra Wide SCSI - 40 MBps - PCI
2 x terminators for SCSI cable, "S/E ACTIVE" and "ULTRA-2 LVD/SE"

analysis
OkOk, so I figure the adaptec card cant handle LVD, which again the HDDs are. Im pretty lost here, very little experience with SCSI. I have two different looking terminators and a bunch of jumpers on the HDD: ID0-ID3, WRITE PROT, START CMD, NARROW/WIDE, DIFFSENS, N.C, IDD RESET, LED and TERM PWR EN.

questions
  • Starting with the terminators, they look different, which one should I use?
  • Jumpers, if indeed the card doesnt support this disc which is LVD, can it be put into some other "mode" with jumpers?
  • Am I missing a config setting in the SCSI BIOS perhaps? pretty much all are defaulted.
  • Anything else I should be thinking of, any ideas?
Click to expand...


Use the Ultra 2 Terminator. The other one is an SE model, avoid it since you've got Ultra HDD's. IIRC, the Adaptec 2940 series can handle LVD, I have the AIC-7890 on a motherboard, which is pretty much the same thing (AHA-2940U2W chipset), and it works fine with LVD. What are the ID's of all the devices?
 
.
Welcome to the AT forums.

Here is a site that can answer a lot of your questions: http://www.scsifaq.org .

Your card is a wide Ultra SCSI card that can handle up to 40MB/sec. It is a Single-Ended host adapter so the terminator you will use is the one for single-ended drives/cards (S-E Active) and it will go in the connector on the cable that is on the end farthest from the card.

Your cable should be a flat cable with at least four connectors on it: one for the card, one for the Terminator and one for each drive. The cable's wires should be fine like those on the 80-wire ATA cables but there should be only 68 of them. Even slightly defective cables can cause a SCSI setup to malfunction. Cable and termitor are the first spots to check when a working SCSI system begins to malfunction.

You then have to set the SCSI Id numbers for your drives - the 4 pairs of Id jumpers create a binary number from 0 to 15 (for sixteen possible devices). The drive you want to be first drive will have NO jumpers on the 4 pairs of Id pins (equals SCSI Id 0) and it will go in the connector next to the terminator, the drive you want to be next will have a jumper on ONLY the first pair of pins (usually marked ID0 -) and that will equal SCSI Id 1. This drive should go on the next available drive connector. The drives don't HAVE to be next to each other, but that is the convention.

Next even though your drives should automatically detect the S-E card and drop back to S-E mode, I would install a jumper on the pair of pins that forces SE operation on each drive (DIFFSENS). Download the drive manual to be sure you are jumpering the correct pairs.

On the drive that is next to the terminator you will also want to Enable TP (Term Power) which means that drive will provide power to the Terminator. Only ONE drive should have TP Enabled - the one next to the terminator. Often you don't really need to do that as the Term. may be self-powered, but it doesn't hurt and makes sure the Term is getting adequate power. Cabling and termination is extra critial to SCSI operation.

The drives should be set to Wide operation on the Narrow/Wide jumper pair.

The only other jumper that needs to be set is the one that causes the drive motor to start immediately when power is applied (start cmd) - the options may be called Local and Remote: local means the drive starts the motor at powerup, remote means the card controls motor startup. If you have a bunch of drives besides your SCSIs, then you may want to set that jumper so the card provides the start signal so you can spread out the load on your PSU (means delay drive startup times). In the card setup you can set the card to control the drive motor startups and the length of delay between starting each drive (called staggered start).

The next time you boot and go into the card setup, it should recognize the drives and allow you to set them up.

If you have any more questions that can't be answered by the adapter manual (available at the Adaptec site) or the drive manuals (DL from seagate) and the resources at SCSIFAQ site. Check back here.

.bh.
 
ok so the card was broken 🙂

I managed to get the hd recognized, however I have some more problems ^^
The HDs were attached via a compaq raid array controller, now I only have the scsi controller, but no raid controller. Is it possible to get these working without a raid controller, Im using debian linux.
 
Originally posted by: nexrus
ok so the card was broken 🙂

I managed to get the hd recognized, however I have some more problems ^^
The HDs were attached via a compaq raid array controller, now I only have the scsi controller, but no raid controller. Is it possible to get these working without a raid controller, Im using debian linux.
Click to expand...

Yes, it is the same principle as IDE. Just format them. If the scsi card sees them then they are basically just HDs. The 2940 is pretty much a standard card so any recent OS should recognize it.
 
Yup, no problem. Just repartition and format them. The Ultimate Boot CD has SCSI drivers so you could boot off that to do the partitioning. If your version of Win has the drivers for your card, then you'd be able to do the partitioning from within Win 2k or XP using the Disk Management tool.

.bh.
 
Sorry been a bit preoccupied today. I meant to say I need them working without data loss, as I need to recover data from the disks! Obviously I cant just format 🙁
I came to the conclusion that these will not work without a raid controller and propably THE raid controller (compaq proliant stuff..).

On a new twist, I sort of managed to get the old mobo working with some heavy cutting of wires, not too wise propably...anyway something is still off, Ive replicated everything except the HD jumpers, those I cant remember. There were only 3 jumpers available, 2 on one, the last on the other. I will continue looking and post my results later on, have learned quite a bit today 🙂
 
So you wait 'til now to metion that the drives were a RAID volume, etc... :roll:

R-Studio from http://www.r-tt.com is supposed to be able to recover data from raided drives - IDK how they would do with the drives on a different controller though

.bh.
 
Yeah like I sayd its been a long day 🙂

They WERE on the proliant ml350 at RAID 1, now I cant seem to get them properly configured , atleast they wont load my OS. The ID scan still detects both just fine though, need to sleep some so ill continue later i guess 😛
 
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