3B2 Drives
Eric J. Nihill
eric at sactoh0.SAC.CA.US
Thu Dec 13 10:39:19 AEST 1990
There has been a few questions about Configuration of Drives
for a 3B2/300-310-400, so here is a summary of the information
that I have to date:
Type Configuration Variable
Drive # of # of tracks # of sectors # of bytes
ID cylinders /cylinder /track /sector
CDC
WREN 3 697 5 18 512
Seagate
10 MB 2 306 4 18 512
CDC
WRENII 5 929 9 18 512
Fujitsu
72 MB 8 754 11 18 512
Mini-
Scribe
6085 4 940 8 18 512
Maxtor
XT-1140 9 918/1024 9 17 512
For more info on using a MAXTOR:
->From: woods at eci386.uucp (Greg A. Woods)
->Subject: Re: 3B2 Drives
->The 1140's should be 15 heads, 17 sectors/track, 512 bytes/sector, and
->918 cylinders. You can format most 1140's to 1024 cylinders.
->Some people say that you can run them right out to 1224 cyl., as long
->as you aren't booting off them. I never tried it.
(and)
->
->From: woods%eci386 at uunet.UU.NET (Greg A. Woods)
->Subject: Re: Maxtor Drives
->
->[ On Tue Nov 20 12:37 (Re: "Maxtor Drives"), you wrote: ]
->> It seems that there is a hardware configuration problem
->> between a 3B2 and a XT series Maxtor. This problem of being
->> able to read the defect table one minute and not the next
->> seems to be common with several XT series Maxtors on several
->> 3B2's.
->Nope, it's a driver bug.
->> Are there any options on the drive that should be set to
->> make it work with the 3B2? Jumper pins? Cut traces??
->Yup, there's a patch (sorry I don't have the actual patch, since my
->machine is down and out [lightning strike], but you should be able to
->get the fix from AT&T).
->I found this patch did not fully correct the problem, but only reduce
->the hangs to a very short (1-5 secs.) time. The drive(s) will always
->re-cal. though, and yes if you get a bad-block when this happens, it
->can start thrashing.
->The only real fix would be to re-write the id interrupt handler, and
->or speed up the machine.
->
->Here's the readme3b2/3.1/README.id_hang:
->Some 3B2's with two integral disk drives occasionally "hang" for anywhere
->between 10 seconds and a few hours. Then, for no obvious reason, the hang
->will clear itself up.
->Closer inspection reveals that processes are hung on one of the integral
->disk drives, usually the second one. Not all processes are hung,
->though it usually seems like it to the users.
->A patch to the integral disk driver accompanies this README.
->This is the second published patch for this problem.
->The original patch would not eliminate the hangs entirely, but would
->reduce their duration to at most 20 seconds.
->THIS patch prevents the hangs entirely.
->This patch is for UNIX System V Release 3.1 on a 3B2.
->It includes one file besides the README.
->$ ls -l
->-rwxrwxr-x 1 rbc ucs 36248 Oct 27 17:21 idisk.o
->$ sum -r idisk.o
->05778 71 idisk.o
->To install:
->Login as root.
->Save a copy of the original driver and /unix (Hopefully you have room):
-> # mv /boot/IDISK /
-> # cp /unix /unix.old
->Note: Do NOT save a copy of IDISK under a different name in the /boot directory!
->Use mkboot to format the idisk.o file into the /boot directory.
-> # mkboot idisk.o
->Reboot the system in a way to make a new /unix.
-> # touch /etc/system
-> # shutdown -g0 -i6 -y
->
->That should do it. To monitor use:
-> # /etc/crash
-> > od idscancnt 2
-> 40253824: 00000002 00000001
-> ^--------^- This shows 2 resets on drive 0 and 1 reset
-> on drive 1. If no patch is in, idscancnt
-> will not exist. If the old patch is in,
-> these numbers show the number of hangs
-> that were noticed and reset within 20
-> seconds. If this (the new) patch is in,
-> these numbers should always be 0 unless
-> there is a hardware problem.
I called AT&T, but their tech support was not quite sure what
I was referring to about a patch, then told me I should not
need it since I was using R3.2.
Hope this info helps. Feel free to add to it and repost additional
information.
Eric
--
Some do, some don't. | eric at sactoh0.SAC.CA.US
Some will, some won't. | ames!pacbell!sactoh0!eric
I might! | ucbvax!csusac!sactoh0!eric
| ( A Home For Unwanted 3B's )
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