topic Re: AHA-1742 and disk detecting in Operating System - OpenVMS

AHA-1742 and disk detecting

Alex Chupahin — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 11:00:09 GMT

Hello dear all,
can anybody satisfact my interest in the problem.
I have old Jensen with AHA-1742 (yes it is working nicely for a while, God bless)
I use this nice thing (with other Alphas) to port Opensource to OpenVMS.

IBM hard disks works fine (DDYS, DNES series) up to 18GB has been tested. Now one of the working with OpenVMS installed.

But any Seagate ST3xxxxx any size (small 4GB even) do detected, showed via SRM, but do not work; controller AHA-1742 just freezes with attempt to read from it. It seems it can read only first sector(s) only.
Hard reboot only is required to wake up.

Today I just get Compaq (Fujutsu MAE3182LC), working fine with old PCI adapters (AHA-2940),
but AHA-1742 cannot detect it even - I cant see it under SRM
>>>show dev

Hardware is definitely good;
hard disk's motor is started, disk's led is light

Can anybody comment these setuations?
Is it a way to work with this hards?

Re: AHA-1742 and disk detecting

Alex Chupahin — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 14:45:27 GMT

It seems, I've solved the problem with Fujitsu
disks. The problems lies in the fact that Wide16 SCSI is for default. I should short the pins corresponded.

But problem with Seagates still here.
It is interesting how the problem may be solved....

Re: AHA-1742 and disk detecting

John Gillings — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 22:13:19 GMT

Alex,

> It is interesting how the problem may be solved....

Seriously, it's not worth your time. Bear in mind that the Jensen is nearly 20 years old. Back then 1GB SCSI disks cost about $2K and 18GB drives, let alone 1TB drives, were science fiction.

Remember the wise words "None of the S's in SCSI stand for 'Standard'". Apart from tested, documented and supported combinations, what works, what doesn't and under what circumstances is all but unpredictable.

If you find a combination that works reliably and satisfies your requirements, count yourself lucky.

If a configuration doesn't work, and you've checked all the obvious things like termination, bus length and bus type match, just give up and try something different.

Asking "why doesn't this random combination work" is like banging your head against a wall. Painful and unproductive.

Re: AHA-1742 and disk detecting

Hoff — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 23:46:54 GMT

http://labs.hoffmanlabs.com/node/8
http://h71000.www7.hp.com/wizard/wiz_3521.html
http://www.freddym.org/DEC_Jensen.html
http://www.decuslib.com/decus/vlt97a/everhart/jensen.info

Re: AHA-1742 and disk detecting

Alex Chupahin — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 10:07:59 GMT

> Seriously, it's not worth your time. Bear >in mind that the Jensen is nearly 20 years
>old.

It is hobby. I like my first Alpha called Jensen, I had satisfacted all requirements to run OpenVMS succesfully many years ago, and use it for porting with others DS10L and I64 rx1620.
Last years Jensen is standing at the office table, powered on 24x365 and compiling and testing projects. The speed is not required for me here :)

Generally, porting software for OpenVMS is not worth my time totally, there is no interest from OpenVMS community for opensource Clamav, TCL/TK, Lighttpd and other things how I can see :(
But I still do it - I know - it seems I'm stupid...

Re: AHA-1742 and disk detecting

Alex Chupahin — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 10:17:14 GMT

>Asking "why doesn't this random combination
>work" is like banging your head against a
>wall. Painful and unproductive.

I've ask it here,becouse skilled people here to satisfy my curiosity about Seagate. I hope somebody got something like it years back.

Currently I have 4 IBM (18GB, 9GB) and 2 Fujitsu (18GB,4GB) and 1 Conner hard disks to work with Jensen. I hope this is much more than I really need.

Re: AHA-1742 and disk detecting

Alex Chupahin — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 12:23:41 GMT

>I've ask it here,becouse skilled people here
>to satisfy my curiosity about Seagate.

It seems my bad English

I think the better should be:
I'm sure skilled people are in hte forum, so I ask this question here to satisfy my curiosity about Seagate.
:)

Re: AHA-1742 and disk detecting

Steven Schweda — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 14:25:18 GMT

> But any Seagate ST3xxxxx [...]

"any"? You tried them _all_?

I've used many different Seagate drives on
many different (old) VAX and Alpha systems,
and I've seldom had a problem. (Some old
VAXstation firmware had some trouble
("000000D4") with some disks which returned
too many bytes of ID info, for example, but
no real trouble since then.)

> Hardware is definitely good;

Many "ST3xxxxx" disks have jumpers (or NVRAM
settings?) to control things like SCSI
termination, and if you get those wrong, then
you might reasonably expect trouble.

My oldest Alpha is an AlphaStation 200 4/233,
and it has no Adaptec SCSI adapter, so I know
nothing, but I've been generally satisfied
with Seagate disks for many years. (Except,
perhaps for the ST15150 SCSI toaster, but
even the early Barracuda drives worked if
they had their own, personal fans.)

Re: AHA-1742 and disk detecting

Alex Chupahin — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 14:48:56 GMT

Thanks for replay.

>"any"? You tried them _all_?

Of course, not. Please do not understand the words absolutely.
I tried about 15 or 20 hards only.

It seems the problem is *only* with AHA-1742
(of course I'm not sure the problem is true with AHA-15xx or AHA-1740 or another controller)
but I've use Seagate disks with many other old and newer NCR, Symbios and Adaptec PCI controllers without any problems

>ST15150
ST1xxxx does work with AHA-1742 too without troubles.

I'm speaking about ST3xxxx.
I just remeber I had tried very old Barracuda 2GB even - the same problems.

I had experimented with pins controlled termination and other things without success.
Termination problem?
First block can be readed, aboot (ya, I installed Linux that time) started, but kernel (lies just behind aboot) do not loaded.
Or OpenVMS volume can be mounted, but directory cant be readed.