SUMMARY: Bad ST41200N drive

From: Lisa Zenobi (lisa@fci.COM)
Date: Sat Feb 04 1995 - 02:52:14 CST


Sun-Managers came thru again. Thanks to all who responded to my cry for
suggestions regarding the ST41200n from Seagate.

martin@stavanger.Geco-Prakla.slb.com (Martin Oksnevad) had the winning
answer. I tried solution number 2 and it worked fine. Thanks Martin.

Thanks to the following who responded..

Roger Spaulding <ras@loveland.ramtron.com>
Bill Morrow <morrow@cns.ucalgary.ca>
don@mars.mars.dgrc.doc.ca (Donald McLachlan)
sunrise!don@rambone.psi.net (Don Lenamond)
And any others that I forgot to mention.

Here is Martins suggestions..

The Seagate ST41200N a.k.a. Wren-7 is famous for this problem when
used as system disk on Sun sun4c (and sun4m ?) machines like the SS2.

Solution 1:
  Don't use the first 2 cylinders on the disk, which means partition a
  (root partition) should start on cylinder 2 and not cylinder 0.

Solution 2 from "Sun-Managers' Frequently Asked Questions" :

  Note: Older Wren 7's may not boot on IPX's, ELC's and later machines,
  due to a bug in the Wren 7's firmware. Here is a patch to the NVRAM
  which must be made from the monitor.
   
    WARNING : It is important that you type this correctly. Check this
          several times! Remember all the question marks, dashes and spaces
          and yes, sstart should be with two "s"'s. Note: Syntax errors in
          your NVRAMRC can make your machine unbootable. In Prom version
          2.x, hitting L1-N after the selftest at bootup will reset the NVRAM.

If you have prom revision 2.0 to 2.5, inclusive:

    (from monitor level)
> n
    ok nvedit
      0: true to fcode-debug?
      1: probe-all install-console banner
      2: cd /sd [ or whatever drive you want to boot from ]
      3: patch 0 1 sstart
      4: device-end
      5: [ press <control> c to exit nvedit at this point ]
    ok nvstore
    ok setenv use-nvramrc? true
    ok reset

    For prom revision 2.6 or greater, use:

    (from monitor level)
> n
    ok nvedit
      0: probe-all install-console banner
      1: cd /esp
      2: ' 0 ' 1 ' timed-spin >body 7 /token * + token@ (patch
      3: device-end
      4: [ press <control> c to exit nvedit at this point ]
    ok nvstore
    ok setenv use-nvramrc? true
    ok reset

    If you have a prom revision earlier than 2.0, or you don't wish
    to use the nvramrc, a Wren VII can be made to boot by making
    the "a" partition start at cylinder two, instead of cylinder zero.



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