SCSI Drives

[Royk]

My Bro in law gave me an old server from his business. He included a couple of never-been-opened SCSI drives to replace/add to the smallish SCSIs that were in it already.

I removed the old ones (for now) popped in one of the new ones and used the Adaptec SCSI Select program that comes up at boot-up to format it. I then proceeded to load Server 2000 on it and everything worked fine. Installed the 2nd one, jumpered it as drive 1, formatted and rebooted, but OS doesn't see it. Any ideas?



Roy

 

[drewRoberts]

you need to see if the SCSI cable your useing has master and slave connections. you may need to swap the connectors so the one you jumpered as drive 1(master) is on the master connector.



that might help

 

[guava]

you didn't mention it so... make sure you terminate the scsi chain.

 

[MBFARMS]

The jumpers will be designate the SCSI Id Number. The Master is normally 0 and then you go from there. 7 normally is your controller (adaptec scsi card id). Are you installing single drives like you would in a PC in a chain or do you plan to mirror, duplex, or install the drives into a raid config? This all makes a difference. Check the controller to make sure it is not still configured to the old setup. Good Luck.

 

[ACoyle]

1) SCSI drives do not have master and slave.

2) The most likely cause of your problem is a termination or resister in the first drive.



There must be one and only one terminator in the chain.



It must be on the end drive.



Depending on the model of the drive it can be either an IC you pull or a jumper. Have not seen a switch, but maybe that. go to the sebsite of the manufacterer of the drive and you will be aboe to get complete setup specs.



Should not matter, but are they the same manufacturer?

 

[Philip]

In the adaptec bios. Does it show both drives.



Do both drives have different ID's.



Have you used the Adaptec bios to format and verfy the drive?

 

[Royk]

you need to see if the SCSI cable your useing has master and slave connections. you may need to swap the connectors so the one you jumpered as drive 1(master) is on the master connector.



that might help

you didn't mention it so... make sure you terminate the scsi chain.

1) SCSI drives do not have master and slave.

2) The most likely cause of your problem is a termination or resister in the first drive.



There must be one and only one terminator in the chain.



It must be on the end drive.



Depending on the model of the drive it can be either an IC you pull or a jumper. Have not seen a switch, but maybe that. go to the sebsite of the manufacterer of the drive and you will be aboe to get complete setup specs.

I'm using the same two connectors the original drives were in. Terminator is on the end of the cable as it was with the previous two drives.

The jumpers will be designate the SCSI Id Number. The Master is normally 0 and then you go from there. 7 normally is your controller (adaptec scsi card id). Are you installing single drives like you would in a PC in a chain or do you plan to mirror, duplex, or install the drives into a raid config? This all makes a difference. Check the controller to make sure it is not still configured to the old setup. Good Luck.

The working boot drive containing the OS is unjumpered and shows up as SCSI ID=0. The unseen drive is jumpered and shows an ID of 1. My intention was to install single drives as in a PC.

In the adaptec bios. Does it show both drives.



Do both drives have different ID's.



Have you used the Adaptec bios to format and verfy the drive?

Yes, yes and yes. Well, I didn't actually perform the verify part on either of them.



One thing I noticed on the first drive, which I formatted using the Adaptec BIOS, was that Server 2000 reformatted it as part of the Sever 2000 install.



Thanks for the ideas. Keep 'em coming.



Roy

 

[Philip]

When you say the OS doesn't see the drive. Is this in my computer or the disk management section?

 

[ACoyle]

I understand what you said about the terminator being on the cable. Some drives also have one on the drive that must be disabled.

 

[Dane]

When you boot the computer does the Adaptec disc bios see both drives?

 

[Mike Ellis]

Most (all?) newer SCSI drives have active termination that you can enable/disable with a DIP switch etc. If they are older, there might be passive termination resistor packs mounted in sockets near the back edge of the drive, you just popped them out (or in) as needed.



I spent years fooling with SCSI drives of various stripe on my many Amigas, termination was sometimes an arcane science if you had more than two devices in the chain.



My foolproof method of getting a SCSI drive to work on those old systems:

1) Plug in cables

2) Powerup system, observe drive doesn't work

3) Fiddle with terminators, curse softly

4) Powerup again, observe drive doesn't work

5) Fiddle with terminators on the other drives and devices, curse loudly

6) Repeat (1-5) until the 'magic combination' is found, take deep breath, congratulate self on SCSI intellect... . then notice one of the other devices no longer works

7) Have temper fit

Repeat as necessary :-laf

 

[jkalchik]

Hmmm..... my luck with SCSI seems to better than most. I've got 3 systems on my desk, complete SCSI. No IDE devices at all in my office.



Some other things to check. Don't mix single ended and differential devices on the same chain. Make sure that all narrow devices are downstream (away from the host) from all wide devices.



And as others have noted, double and triple check your terminations, especially if you're using a chain longer than a couple of meters.



When you boot up the system, check the chain in the Adaptec BIOS. If the drives aren't visible in the BIOS, they just won't be visible to the O/S.

 

[Philip]

Every computer in my household is SCSI based. I have been on a full SCSI system for years now. Earlyer this year I upgraded my girls computer. I had issues with the first 2 motherboards would not boot from the SCSI card. I let her have the second setup based on a IDE drive for 2 weeks. She booted the computer twice and said no more. I want my 15k SCSI drive back. LOL



I am waiting for him to answer my last question. If the SCSI bios is seeing both drives. Then the OS should. But I need to know where he is not seeing the drive at. In the "My Computer" or the disk management section of 2k server.



Server 2K, Windows 2k and XP sometimes does not see a new drive in the "My Computer" till you go into disk management and format and assign a letter to it.

 

[Royk]

OK I'm finally back. As I mentioned earlier it does show up in BIOS. It also shows up in device manager. It doesn't show up in My Computer or Windows Explorer. I can't find anyplace in the OS that will reformat the drive. I cannot find "disk management" in the OS for the life of me. I reran the install for 2000 and it saw the drive and reformatted it, so it now shows up and is working. There has to be an easier way to format additional drives. I'm picking up a bunch more today that a guy said I could have all for $20. He said one of them has XP loaded on it. I may just use that for the OS. At least I know what I'm doing for the most part in XP.



Roy

 

[MBFARMS]

In 2000 go to control panel-administrative tools-computer management. Under the Storage group you will see disk management. Find the second drive partition it and format it. Windows should assign it a drive letter. Good luck.

 

[Philip]

Darn you beat me to it MB. :-laf :-laf