SUMMARY: MaxOptix Optical Drive

From: Wei Wei Shao (shao@wintermute.fullerton.edu)
Date: Fri Oct 01 1993 - 08:39:34 CDT


Hello Everyone,
This is a very very late summary (two weeks). But I just got it working a minute ago.

I was asking whether it was possible to put the Tahiti 2m optical drive on Suns.
My problem was the probe-scsi at ok prompt said the device was there, but format
utility could not find it. It turned out to be that there is one DIP switch needs to be
set to device type 0 (Factory setting is 7) so that it will report itself as a direct
access device instead of "an Optical Storage Device". I have also got format.dat entry
from dburwell@telecom.telecom.com (David Burwell) which I used. I did not try the ones
from dav@genisco.gtc.com.

My final working DIP swtich set is:
S1: off on off on on off off off
S2: on off off off off off off on

Thanks to:
dav@gtc.com (David L. Markowitz)
dburwell@telecom.telecom.com (David Burwell)

Following are the replies:

>From dav@gtc.com Mon Sep 13 12:52:53 1993
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From: dav@genisco.gtc.com (David L. Markowitz)
Message-Id: <9309131836.AA16532@genisco.gtc.com>
To: shao@wintermute.fullerton.edu
Subject: Re: Maxoptix Optical Drives
Status: R

>We recently acquired a Maxoptix Optical Drive. It works fine on
>PCs with the Adaptec SCSI adapter. Now we want to put it as a
>SCSI device on Suns. The probe-scsi command at the ok prompt
>shows the drive is on target 1. But the format utility cannot
>probe it as a SCSI disk. Any folks has experience with it?

1. If you have a Tahiti 1, throw it out and get a Tahiti 2.

2. Set the internal switches/jumpers so that it does *not*
report that it is a removable device.

3. Add the following to format.dat:

#
# This is for the Maxoptix Tahiti II drive
#
disk_type = "MAXOPTIX (ISO, 512b) SYSTEM" \
      : ctlr = MD21 \
      : ncyl = 18600 : acyl = 12 : pcyl = 18612 : nhead = 1 : nsect = 31 \
      : rpm = 2400 : bpt = 18910 : bps = 610 :
disk_type = "MAXOPTIX (ISO,1024b) SYSTEM" \
      : ctlr = MD21 \
      : ncyl = 18501 : acyl = 2 : pcyl = 18503 : nhead = 1 : nsect = 34 \
      : rpm = 2400 : bpt = 18910 : bps = 610 :
disk_type = "MAXOPTIX (NON-ISO, 512b) SYSTEM" \
      : ctlr = MD21 \
      : ncyl = 15081 : acyl = 2 : pcyl = 15083 : nhead = 1 : nsect = 60 \
      : rpm = 2200 : bpt = 36600 : bps = 610 :

disk_type = "MAXOPTIX (NON-ISO, 1024b) SYSTEM" \
      : ctlr = MD21 \
      : ncyl = 15104 : acyl = 2 : pcyl = 15106 : nhead = 1 : nsect = 66 \
      : rpm = 2200 : bpt = 74052 : bps = 1122 :

4. Format with the description that matches your media.

        David L. Markowitz
        Solaris Systems Division - Genisco Technology Corporation
        dav@gtc.com
        * I am lost in a maze of twisty, little bug symptoms, all different *

>From telecom!telecom.com!dburwell@netcom.com Thu Sep 23 10:22:17 1993
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Date: Thu, 23 Sep 1993 10:08:19 PDT
Reply-To: dburwell@telecom.com
From: dburwell@telecom.telecom.com (David Burwell)
To: shao@wintermute.fullerton.edu
Subject: Re: Maxoptix Optical Drives
Status: R

This is a kind of a Summary that I sent out.

>Did you ever get a good response to your posting on
>the Tahiti 2 drive format issue?
>
 The short answer is no. But I kept playing with it until it worked.
 What I found is that if you buy the Tahiti 1gb cartridge, then say all the right
words and make all the right signs, you can run FORMAT, then do a NEWFS, then
mount it and it works.

 Actually, the process seems to be a little more reliable than that. I set the
SCSI id to 2, and the drive is setup as a removable hard disk instead of
a Optical drive, then I made this entry in my /etc/format.dat file:

disk_type = "MaxOptix Tahiti" \
        : ctlr = SCSI \
        : ncyl = 29190 : acyl = 2 : pcyl = 29192 : nhead = 1 : nsect = 31 \
        : rpm = 2200 : bpt = 16384

partition = "MaxOptix Tahiti" \
        : disk = "MaxOptix Tahiti" : ctlr = SCSI \
        : c = 0, 904890
  (This is per the tech note that I got from Maxoptix)

  I didn't have to tweek the kernel or anything fancy like that. Then, when I get a
new cartridge, I do run format, select "partition", select "select a predefined
partition", then select "MaxOptix Tahiti", then do a "Lable", and quit out of
format. Notice I didn't do an actual format. Then I do a newfs -m 1 /dev/rsd2c
(this takes about 15 minutes), and it places the fs onto the disk, then it's
ready to mount. I do a mount /dev/sd2c /mo and then I read and write to /mo like a
local hard disk.

  The user thinks this is too much trouble to go through for each new disk; I think
he's lucky it works. He uses it as a removable Hard Disk, and it seems to work out
OK, although there is only about 380MB availible per side after a format.

  PS- I notice that Articon sets the disk as a 1024 byte per sector disk. Maxoptix
told me I could only use 512 byte per sector disks from Maxoptix. This had something
to do with the fact that I was using a Sparc IPX machine. Whose disks do you buy
for the drive?
  PSS- When I talked to Articon, they said that their software was not required to run
the drive, they just made it "easier to use". They also offered to sell me a drive
and software for about 50% what the Sun Express catalog had it priced for. I bought
this drive from a local cut-rate distributer for about $2300 with 0 support, they
don't really know what a Sparc is, so I was on my own; but Maxoptix tech support
was very helpful and interested in what was going on, although they didn't have
much experiance with Sun stuff either. Maxoptix is in San Jose CA. and listed in the
phone book.

>From: lkissel@ufo.llnl.gov (Lynn D. Kissel)
>Message-Id: <9309091728.AA01281@ufo.llnl.gov>
>To: dburwell@telecom.telecom.com
>Subject: Tahiti 2
>Status: O
>
>
>Did you ever get a good response to your posting on
>the Tahiti 2 drive format issue?
>
>I'm using the same drive remarketed by Artecon and also
>have had problems formatting via 'format'. The Artecon
>installation added the following lines to my format.dat
>which differ from those you posted
>
>#
># Artecon Erasable Optical disk (TAHITI 1GB EOD) 1024 byte/sector
>#
>
>disk_type = "Artecon TAHITI 1GB EOD ISO - 1024" \
> : ctlr = SCSI : fmt_time = 25 \
> : ncyl = 29322 : acyl = 2 : pcyl = 29324 : nhead = 1 : nsect = 34 \
> : rpm = 2400 : bpt = 17408
>
>partition = "Artecon TAHITI 1GB EOD ISO - 1024" \
> : disk = "Artecon TAHITI 1GB EOD ISO - 1024" : ctlr = SCSI \
> : c = 0, 996948 : g = 0, 996948 : h = 1, 996914
>
>Lynn Kissel, LLNL
>kissel1@llnl.gov
>

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