Adding a second hard drive

[jtw29]

I'm new to SCO UNIX and would like to add a second SCSI hard drive to a system that can be swapped out and moved to another identical SCO box. I don't even know how to go about formating and mounting a second hard drive. Can anyone help me with some step-by-step info? Would this second hard drive be hot-swapable? And how would I do this?

I am using Open Server 5.0.7
Thanks for the info.

 

[cdlvj]

mkdev hd
and follow the steps.

 

[apeasecpc]

Why are you wanting to set the drive up in one system and move it to another rather than setting it up in its final destination?

Are you wanting to duplicate your current system for backup purposes? If so, making a duplicate copy is not so simple as copying your files to a backup drive.

Are you trying to use the drive as a temporary transfer device to move data from one system to another? You can do this, but you need to take the right steps on the destination machine so that you don't wipe out the data.

Hot-swapable drives have to do with a raid controller and mirroring, which is something different than you are talking about here (you would never set up a mirror drive on a server other than the one that will use it). You can't just plug in a second drive and it automatically show up; it needs to be configured and then the system rebooted (and the filesystem mounted) before it is visible.

 

[jtw29]

cdlvj, Thanks for the tip.

apeasecpc, I want to use the drive to move data from one machine to the other. I often have to move 50 or 60 gigabytes from one machine to the other and even on a gigabit ethernet this takes a while. I was hoping to be able to move the drive to the other machine to process the data very quickly. So, it sounds like I won't be able to remove the drive unless the system is down, right? That's fine. Even shutting down the machines to move the drive will be worth the time saved in transfering files. What steps do I need to take to prevent the data from being wiped out by the second machine?

 

[edfair]

suggest you "man mkdev" for the steps to create the additional drive on the first machine. It will be a 3 step process. Then you will undo the 3rd step to move the drive.
On the second machine you basically do steps 1 and 3 with a modified step 2.

Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.

 

[cdlvj]

Is this one of the SCSI drives that fit in the bay?

Configure the second machine as the 1st, and you probably can insert the drive, mount, do the copies, unmount, and remove.

You will need to remove the mount for that 2nd drive in the /etc/fstab file(not real sure of the name).

You just have to try it, and see if it works, but I am pretty sure it will.

 

[eyedoc1975]

jtw29
Please go to SCO Knowledge center and look at following three articles by their TA no. These deals with
step by step procedure about adding, removing SCSI drives,etc.
109379
104863
105052
I hope that this will help.

 

[jtw29]

Thanks to everyone's help I have the drive mounted now. However I am getting an error everytime I try and move data to the drive. I get an error that says: "Command aborted: Drive detected a SCSI parity error" and a few other messages and SCO completely shuts down.

Being a beginner with UNIX I'm not sure where to begin to solve this. Any tips pointing me in the right direction would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

 

[apeasecpc]

The problem could be termination. Are you plugging the drive in at the end of the cable? If so, it could be your existing drive is terminated and is interfering with the new drive.

You should also go into the scsi card firmware and check the settings for the scsi ID of the new drive. If you are trying to use an ID that is typically used for slower devices it might be pre-set to a slower data rate, which could be the cause of the problem.

 

[cdlvj]

Give us more info on the drive model/controller.

The file system was created successfully?

Can you cd to the file system?
ls ?
echo "data" >file.txt works?

 

[jtw29]

The drive is a Seagate 76 gig ultra320 drive. Model number is ST373307LW. The controller is an Adaptec 29160 U160.

Yes, we've been able to cd to the new drive and ls and everything. It all seemed to be going well until we started to fill it up with files. I got about 15 gig's worth of files onto it and then it started to act up. So, I reformatted it, checked for bad clusters and started transfering files again. It freezes the computer after transfering just a few files. It no longer give me error messages as it did before. It just freezes. The first few times it happened I got an error saying there was a SCSI parity error and then the computer would shut down.

I'm baffled.

 

[cdlvj]

You have a mismatch as the drive technology is newer than the controller. I am suprised that it works at all.

You can put like 160 drives on a 320 controller but not vice versa.

You will have to upgrade the controller. Or get a 160 style hard drive.

 

[jtw29]

That's very interesting....
This box was purchased as a system along with some industrial machinery it operates. The existing system drive is the same identical drive I am trying to add. The box was preconfigured with this controller/drive configuration. It sounds like I need to contact the manufacturer with a complaint about how they configured this system. Are there any online documents to support the fact that the U320 drives should not be used with an U160 controller?

What other controllers are compatable with SCO OS 5.0.7?

Thanks for your help.

 

[cdlvj]

Nov 2003 Ultra320 Family Manager Set non-HostRAID v3.0 for SCO Open Server 5.07

Ultra320 Family Manager Set for SCO Open Server 5.07 for the 29320(A) and 39320(A) series cards without HostRAID enabled.

29320 and 39320 series.

http://www.adaptec.com,

just check and see if the drivers are in the download list.

 

[jtw29]

I just checked both Adaptec's and Seagate's website and both indicate that an Ultra 320 drive on an Ultra 160 controller will work just fine. Seagate's drives are backward compatable. Any other suggestions?

 

[edfair]

Could I suggest a visit to the adaptec and seagate sites to see if there are any additional details available there. If the system was configured with that combination and it is working it would appear that they are not incompatible, but that isn't to say that there aren't engineering changes on later drives that made them so.
I realise that the following will take the system for a while, but I would put the new drive by itself and see if it will take the OS and run without errors. This strictly as a troubleshooting process. If it works as the boot device it will eliminate the drive and controller as the source of trouble.


Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.

 

[fredericofonseca]

I had this problem once. Changing the firmware of the HD solved the problem.

And as mentioned before using a 320 disk on a 160 controller works just fine.
Just for info some 320 controlers when they find a 320 HD will default to 80MB, and issue a warning stating that the "HD was found to support 320, and should do so when the OS is loaded".


Regards

Frederico Fonseca
SysSoft Integrated Ltd

http://www.syssoft-int.com