SCSI is having problems

[illusha]

i just finished putting together this monster rackmounted computer based on guts pulled from IBM Netfinity 4500R 8656RY with dual PIII. It used to run good with a huge 64-bit PCI controller card, but now i am trying to get it to work with an onBoard SCSI, which is an ADAPTEC AIC-7899 (39160)...

the hard drive used to be hotswap, but has been pulled from its caddy. I had to get an mini adaptor card to go from Ultra160 (i think) on the drive side to a regular SCSI and a power connector on the other side. I can hear the drive spinning , however the BIOS does not show it at start up... when i went into the SCSI-select utility it only showed the host adaptor card on ID7, but no drives to manage...

During startup it says (under SCSI part of BIOS monologue)

Adaptec AIC-7899 SCSI BIOS v 2.55
All rights reserved 1999

Time out failure during SCSI inquiry Command!
Rescanning for SCSI Devices.......
Time out failure during SCSI inquiry Command!
Rescanning for SCSI Devices.......
SCSI BIOS not installed!

i am having problems finding a different BIOS for this adapter from the one that i already (may) have, although i managed to find an XP driver on driverguide.com (which is the one i am assuming i should use during the 6-floppy install method...

anyone have any idea on what is going on???
and where is my SCSI BIOS???

 

[Enkrypted]

Are you sure that you don't have any ID number conflicts? Is the SCSI chain properly terminated? I found this troubleshooting article when googling for info on this problem:

If there are no SCSI ID number conflicts and the terminations are properly set, you may never encounter a SCSI-related error message during boot-up. And up to a point, you may even get away with an improperly terminated system. My old 486 has a single SCSI device-an internal CD-ROM drive th at has never been terminated-and it's worked fine for years. But if I insert another SCSI device between the controller and the CD-ROM drive, I can no longer get away with this improperly terminated chain. Trouble will also arise if more than two devices are terminated or if there's an ID conflict. Furthermore, the relationship between a displayed error message and the real problem is not always clear. For example, the following ominous warning showed up immediately after I connected some external devices to the host adapter and rebooted the system:

Time-out failure during SCSI Inquiry command!
No SCSI boot device found
SCSI BIOS not installed!
No boot device available

When I disconnected the cable leading to the first external device, the message went away and the system again booted successfully from the internal SCSI drive C:-just as it had been doing for years. The actual problem turned out to be an identity crisis. Two external SCSI devices accidentally had been set to the same SCSI ID number. When I resolved this problem, the system again booted successfully.



Enkrypted
A+

 

[edfair]

Your SCSI BIOS may be disabled. [CTRL]+[A] during the time the splash screen is showing may bring up a setup screen that activates the BIOS.
Once you have the BIOS up and running you can do a bus scan for devices attached.
It sounds like the hard drive is not being seen by the controller. Time to look on the manufacturer's site to trace the interface specs and see if your controller matches.


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

 

[illusha]

There only is one SCSI drive on Channel A. I am using an External cable with only one connector on each end. Channel B is not being used (I don't think that I have to terminate that one). I let the system automatically set the IDs.

 

[illusha]

Ctrl-A is the SCSI-select Utility. It scans, but does not see the drive.

 

[rclarke250]

The hot swap bay for this uses SCA scsi drives. you need to enable the jumpers on the hdd for terminate, and set an ID, there is no automatic scsi id settings once you remove from the backplane.

Also, you will always get a no scsi bios loaded, if there is no boot device found during the scan, this is normal.

 

[illusha]

You wouldn't happen to know how to set the Jumpers? I Can access them through a little panel, but cant see the top of the drive without taking the whole damn thing apart.

 

[rclarke250]

the jumpers should be on the bottom, or the back, depending on the model number of the drive, and each model has different jumper layouts. so you have to take the drive in hand, look at the stickers on the drive, it will give you the layout of the jumper settings.

 

[illusha]

yeah, that's what I figured
thanx for the idea tho

 

[edfair]

How about the specs off the manufacturer's site? Most I've seen have been pretty thourough even if hard to read.

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

 

[illusha]

IBM doesnt have any jumper-settings info on the site
i will try to find a readme
the problem is that a normal sized Netfinity was cut in 3 pieces and put into a 6U case - and the drive is right on the bottom of that mess

 

[cdlvj]

There are two types of those mini adapter cards, one with termination and the other without. Which one do you have?

Either way, if no termination provided then you need a terminator in your cable. The small card has switches to set the id.

I got both types of cards, and the one with the terminator just did not work at all.

 

[illusha]

the adapter card i was talking about plugs into the Ultra160 port that the hard drive has... on the other side it gives out a power connector and 2 types of SCSI (old and new)... theres no jumpers on the card... theres nothing to terminate on the cable either as it is an external type cable...

there are however jumpers on the drive itself, i will have to pull it out of the system later on today... man, its been such a project - and every time i think i'm done and put it all together, something else comes up and i have to take it all apart again... dammmmmmm

 

[cdlvj]

The one I used had an 80 pin connector which attached to the drive, and a 68 pin for the cable. It had a power connector and row of pins to set the id.

 

[rclarke250]

the 80 pin connector is SCA, used in hot swap applications. It would still be ultra 160 as long as the adapter was also...

 

[illusha]

OK - so i pulled everything apart again, cant quite figure out how to set what though...

JUMPER INFO:

*** The hard disk is an IBM 19K0613 9.1Gb USCSI LVD/SE

It has 6 open jumpers:

-- one has a strange triangular symbol with two arrows
-- RES
-- 8 \
-- 4 \ all these are marked ADDR
-- 2 /
-- 1 /

*** The adaptor card is of unknown origin
*** It DOES have jumpers on it as well - my bad
the jumpers on the adapter card are:

-- LED
-- SYM
-- DLY
-- MTR
-- ID3
-- ID2
-- ID1
-- ID0

If someone could enlighten me as to waht all these mean that would be greatly appreciated...

I am just guessing that the drive will be left alone but the jumpers on the adapter card will have to be set to ID0-3... if so, does it matter which ID number i choose???

 

[rclarke250]

You do understand that on a scsi chain you have to jumper the drives for the scsi address? It is binary. no jumpers is = 0...id 0 jumpered =1 id 2 jumpered = 2 + 1 if id0 is jumpered also... dly is a delay so all the drives don't try to start at once and over strain the power supply, if you have a lot of drives.LED is led out,for front panel led.

on the drive the res is reserved,and not used, 1 is the same as id0,2 is the same as id1,4is the same as id2,8 is the same as id 3...it is just the decimal representaion of what you add together if the jumper is on.

SCA drives don't have an active terminator on the drive, so you will have to get a cable with a connector to add a terminator,unless there is a jumper setting you can find on the convertor board...there has to be termination on both ends of the chain, since all newer scsi adaptor chipsets allow active auto termination on the adapter end,you really just have to worry about the drive end.

 

[illusha]

so, i gotta get an internal SCSI cable and a terminator for it???

also, would MTR or SYM jumper settigns on the card be it???

 

[illusha]

and is it OK to just leave the ID jumpers alone to have Address 0 ??? - only one drive in the system...

 

[rclarke250]

yes you can leave 0 as the id, mtr i would think was a motor setting, but it could be something like manual terminator resister...or something. try it and see...if it still doesn't see it. then yes, you will need to get a cable with an extra connector so you can add a terminator.