SUMMARY: SS20+2.3 SCSI problems

From: sys013@aberdeen.ac.uk
Date: Mon Dec 19 1994 - 05:09:22 CST


Thanks for all the replies. Turns out I missed a recent summary pointing out
the problems with Seagate Barracuda discs with Firmware Revision below 17.
(from Mr T. Crummey <tom@sos.bangor.ac.uk>). This will hopefully fix my disk
problem. If anyone missed that summary, and would like a copy, I'd be pleased to
send it on.

The Solaris 2.3 CD labelled "Hardware 5/94" contains more up-to-date patches
than my original (unlabelled) Solaris 2.3 CD.

No-one seems to know much about the Hitachi CDR-3750. I checked the CDROM FAQ,
which mentioned a CDR-1750. Anyway I'm trying a more explicit mailshot on this
problem.

Thanks to...
anthony baxter <anthony.baxter@aaii.oz.au>
fallan@awadi.com.AU (Frank Allan - Network Manager)
Mr T. Crummey <tom@sos.bangor.ac.uk>
mcneill@hamlet.ngt.sungard.com (Keith McNeill)
martin@stavanger.Geco-Prakla.slb.com (Martin Oeksnevad)
louis@meg.saic.com (Dances on keyboards (Louis Brune))
Kevin.Sheehan@uniq.com.au (Kevin Sheehan {Consulting Poster Child})

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gordon Robertson, Head of Systems, Aberdeen University Computing Centre
Tel +44(0)224 273340
E-Mail : g.robertson@abdn.ac.uk
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Original query:
Hello All!

I have just attempted (and failed) to install a headless SS20 PCNFS server
with Sol 2.3 using an internal ST31200W Sun 1Gbyte disk, internal CDROM, and 3
x ST151505 4Gbyte (Seagate Barracuda) external disks (3rd party).

I hit intermittant SCSI errors on power up, which I rationalised as being
caused by the ST15150N disks having different spin-up timer settings which were
quite long, and I didn't allow for. I got thro' the install with a few more
SCSI hiccuphs, but all seemed well. I had by this time formatted the 4Gbyte
disks each as 2 x 2Gbyte partitions. I even managed to
boot off the internal disk.

But subsequently I started to get a variety of SCSI errors for all the
disks, including the internal one. ("timeouts, "data transfer overrun", "data
ovr", "Cmd dump" etc). These are now causing the system to hang when I try to
do anything, even when the big disks are not directly involved.

"probe-scsi" always seems to work OK, correctly reporting the make/model of the big disks.

I ran install off CDROM from a Solaris2.3 CD, but noticed afterwards that the
SS2 had come with a CD labelled "Hardware 5/94". Is this significant?

SCSI-2 cable run to the external disks is 2metres.

I also have a (Sun) FSBE card in the SS20 - is this a legal config? It seems OK
with "probe-scsi-all", which correctly reports the 3 x HITACHI CDR-3750 drives
which are attached. However, with these connected, I get complaints about
illegal block size of 2048. I think there's a dip switch I can change on these
drives to fix this. can anyone help here?

NB the CD drives were not attached when the prior SCSI problems were
encountered!

Any help much appreciated. I will summarise.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gordon Robertson, Head of Systems, Aberdeen University Computing Centre
Tel +44(0)224 273340
E-Mail : g.robertson@abdn.ac.uk
--------------------------------------------------------------------------



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