SCSI Help needed

[Hearie]

Hello

I do not know anything about SCSI but have been trying to work through my ignorance and install a SCSI hard drive...alas no luck.

Here's the situation...

Putting together a computer and want to use a SCSI HD.

Here's the problem...

After I boot up the comp see's the SCSI adaptor(AHA-2940/AHA2940W...if that means anything to anyone), it also see's the SCSI drive(Seagate sx910800n). When I go into the SCSI utilities and go to the Seagate drive to verify media here's what I come back with.
Target SCSI ID: 0
SCSI CDB sent: 03 00 00 00 0E 00 07 00 03 00
Host Adaptor Status 00h-No host adaptor error
Target Status: 02h- Check condition
Sense Key: 03h- medium error
+Sense Code: 31h
+Sense Code Qualifier: 00h

The hard drive is new out of the box but about maybe 2 years old. If you need more info please let me know what you need. Thnx.
Bryan

[AllGamer]

Sounds like TERMINATOR has not been set in the SCSI HDD properly

check to see if TERMINATOR is in place :t

..erh.. by the way it's not the TERMINATOR the movie, the jumper feature option is called that way :D

[Hearie]

AllGamer
I put in another SCSI HDD and the new one is working just fine. Last week the first SCSI HDD was working but the I had to shut down in the middle of a format.....*blushes*....could that have messed up the first SCSI HDD?

Bryan

[AllGamer]

if that's what happend, just format that HDD again using the ADAPTEC bIOS format :t

[Hearie]

Is that what they call low level formatting? If so I tried it for like 2 hours(the computer said it might take 4 hours) but I did not hear anything going on with the SCSI HDD. Just figured it was hung up or something as there is no progress line to show you that it is formatting.

Bryan

[AllGamer]

yes it takes a very very long time
and no it's not hung

it can take up to a day if you have a 80gig drive

so just do it let it sit, go shopping or for a trip to las vegas, and by the time you come back it'll be done

:D

[Hearie]

More problems with this SCSI HDD. I got it to low level format but now I can't get windows to recognize it in Windows98. While the computer boots up it "sees" the Seagate SX910800N and assigns it to drive "D:". I am using an IDE HDD to boot up with(thats drive "C:") I set my CD-ROM to drive "E:". So anyways while it is booting up it "sees" the SCSI HDD but when I get into windows it no longer recognizes it. It shows up in the device manager as working fine but it doesn't have a drive letter assigned to it there. I THINK I have all the jumpers set right for termination but am not sure about one of the jumpers. That is the "Terminator Power Option" I have "internal terminator power source" set to "On". There is also another jumper for "Terminator Enabled" that I have set to "On". Anyways quick recap...While booting up the HDD gets recognized and assigned a drive letter("d:"), but when I get into windows98 it no longer sees it under "My Computer", BUT does see it in "Device Manager" BUT with no Drive letter assigned to it.....whew. Hope this makes sense to somebody. Any Ideas?
Thnx
Bryan

[Peter M]

Low-level format actually is completely internal to the drive, it doesn't matter what software or adapter BIOS issues the command.

What it did for you is, the drive scanned its surface and now hides the surface defects from the host computer, hence, no more "media error" messages.

Now you need to put partitions and file systems onto the drive. In DOS based Windows flavors, you do that through fdisk and format commands from the DOS box; NTish Windowses have a Drives and Volumes Manager utility for this.

regards, Peter

[Hearie]

I partitioned it as a primary drive, but the problem I am having is that win98 won't see it when I am in windows. I have been messing with it some and when I set the SCSI ID as #1 instead of #0 and boot up with a ide HDD I can now see the SCSI drive in win98(as drive D:). I formatted it and am now running a scandisk on it. But what I want is not to boot up from the IDE HDD just boot up from the SCSI drive. Oh well at least I can see it in Win98 now....*sighs*....
Thnx
Bryan