Alphastation 255 Open VMS troubles

[Vladimir Fabecic]

ST32550N (Seagate Barracuda 2LP) should have firmware RZ28D. In that case it must work (if the hardware is OK).
Does anyone have firmware file?
I have the utility.
Did you try with OpenVMS 7.3-2?

[Vladimir Fabecic]

ST32550N should be RZ28C-E or RZ28D-VA if SBB.

[Antoniov.]

Hi James,
I happened the same on old alphaserver 400 and a Seagate HD. After upgrade of SRM console disk worked better, just sometime I got mounting error. But your PAL code is up to time while console might be V7.0.

Now you can play with SCSI terminator: if you have SCSI terminator connected to cable, disable termination on HD and on SRM
>>>set control_scsi_term external.
At last you can try with
$ INIT DKA0: /ERASE
to verify read and write feature.

Antonio Vigliotti

[Jan van den Ende]

Antonio,

you are simply too fast! :-)

(He reacted to your answer to my question in the time I need to drive home)

James, pay attention to his answers!

Proost.

Have one on me.

jpe

[Antoniov.]

Jan,
these days I'm very reactive. This is the merely reason I'm on podium :-D
I feel this can continue just for some days, then I return to sleep!

Antonio Vigliotti

[Willem Grooters]

@Jan:

Stupid me. You're right ;-)

(0 points)

Willem

[James Dolomount]

Antonio

Got pulled away on another issue around the plant.

Not sure what your asking me to do here but i'll give it a try.

I've had the tape drive connected into ribbon cable of the computer not through the rear SCSI port....so there were no terminators installed anyway.

Do i need a terminator on the rear SCSI port if there is no cable/device connected?

Thanks,
Jamie

[Robert_Boyd · Accepted solution]

James,

Usually there should be terminators on both ends of the chain of SCSI devices. Sometimes you can get away without them on one end or the other, but you can easily have significant problems instead.

One way to check out the firmware loaded in the SCSI drives is to boot from the CD and get to the DCL prompt and do the following:

$ RZT == "$SYS$ETC:RZTOOLS_ALPHA"
$ RZT DKA0:/INQ

You can attempt to reformat the drive by doing the following:

$ RZT DKA0:/FO

If the drive is in fact using straight RZ28 firmware (and not RZ28D or RZ28M) you can load the most recent firmware by doing

$ RZT DKA0:/LOAD=SYS$ETC:RZ28_442D_DEC2104.FUP

If you're going to format the drive, you would probably want to update the firmware first.

Robert

[Antoniov.]

James,
try to explain.
You have 4 SCSI devices (from your post of Aug 2, 2005 11:11:14 GMT): internal DKA0:, DKA100: and DKA400 and external MKA500:
Inside your machine, you have a SCSI flat cable, starting from any disk and ending to external connector where you plug tape unit.
You must have 1 terminator on tape unit (that has two sockets).
You must have another terminator connected on starting of internal SCSI flat cable. To avoid this terminator you can enable terminator 1.st disk connected to SCSI flat cable (the most far away the connector where you plug the tape).
All other device can't have terminator enable.

Antonio Vigliotti

[James Dolomount]

Robert,

I quered for the firmware version of DKA0 as you suggested, but don't see any reference to RZ28 at all. The last few lines show.....

Vendor ID : Seagate
Product ID : ST32550N
Product Revision: 0021
Module Number : 0000
Module Name :
Volume Number :
Fireware Version: 11210021
Firmware Date : 3035

I also tried to update the firmware with the command you gave, but as I suspected, I did not work as the drive types did not match. Message I received.....

Not the same drive type!!!
Drive
FUP Image

Can this firmware be upgraded and what command do I need?

Thanks,
Jamie