SCSI Newbie setup question

[dajo]

Hello,

Just go a Cheetah 15k.3 ST318453LW SCSI drive and an LSIU160 controller. I've never set one of these up before and I don't quite understand the installation guides. When I boot the SCSI configuration utility searches and assigns the device (drive). Still does not show in Windows, though.

What am I doing wrong here?

Thanks!

================
More:

The Seagate on-line wizard finds the drive, but why does the SCSI controller have to search for it each time?

The drive comes low-level formatted. I still need to format it don't I?

I'm going to install Windows XP Pro on it so won't that software do the format (I want NTFS)?

 

[Peter]

Congrats!

You need to establish a file system on the drive. Once you got the cabling and termination right (you obviously did), then the SCSI BIOS and the SCSI drivers in Windows see the physical device. Now to get a drive letter, you need to dig out the Storage Manager thing from the "Administrative Tools" section, and use that to put one or more partitions on the drive, and create a file system in each. (This is what in DOSish operating systems, fdisk and format would do. "Formatting" isn't the correct term, all "format" does today is create the file system and do a surface check.)

regards, Peter

 

[dajo]

I plan to install XP Pro on that drive so should I just go ahead and do that?

I don't understand why the controller shows "searching for device" each time I boot. Is that normal? It flashes something which contains the word "successful" and then boots into Windows. Currently I have Windows 98 on the IDE drive which I am using to boot, but the boot up is very slow even after the controller (LSIU160) finds the drive.

Fdisk finds the drive, so I guess it needs to be partitioned. I want NTFS but fdisk does not support that file system does it?

 

[bozo1]

I don't understand why the controller shows "searching for device" each time I boot. Is that normal?

Yes, that's normal. It is scanning all of the possible SCSI ID's looking for devices.

I want NTFS but fdisk does not support that file system does it?

Just partition and format it during the XP install.

 

[dajo]

Right - XP didn't like the Seagate NTFS formatting so I did it with XP and everything came up fine.

XP is new for me so I'm still learning. SCSI drive is fast. I like the combo.

Thanks for all your help.

 

[Peter]

"Searching..." This is normal. Just like with IDE, the controller BIOS must find and establish communication with the attached drive units.

You can teach the LSI BIOS about where it doesn't have to look for drives. Press Ctrl-C, select the one controller you have, enter its menu, proceed to its "Device Selection" menu, and in the matrix of device IDs and options, set "Scan At Boot" to "No" for those IDs where you don't have anything connected. That'll make the boot process lots faster. So does setting the display mode to "Terse" in the Global Settings menu.

regards, Peter

 

[Wolfsraider]

thanks peter,
it took me a few tries to figure all that out but i finally got it and my boot times are much smaller

mike

 

[init6]

Do you know if you can teach an Adaptec 2940U2Ws BIOS the same thing? I run Plextor SCSI CDROM and CDR drives, and they take their sweet time during bootup. I'd say it adds a full 20 seconds to my boot time.

Any hints?

 

[Peter]

Yes, in Adaptec's BIOS setup, you can also disable scan-at-boot for individual IDs. Note that this makes it skip the EMPTY positions - if you have SCSI drives that take ages to get ready, this won't change anything.