Problem with A/UX 2.0 & Apple CD-ROM Driver

[J.Pearce at cs.ucl.ac.uk]

To date I have only used UNIX CD-ROMs with A/UX, but recently I have
tried to use Mac HFS CD-ROMS which seem to have caused considerable
trouble.

I have a MacIIci with 8M RAM and an internal 170M Quantum hard disk
formatted with Silverlining. The internal hard disk is SCSI id 0 and
I have an Apple CD-ROM player (a new one without a fan) at SCSI id 3.
The software provided with the CD player was version B-3.0.2 and included
Apple CD-ROM driver 3.0. A/UX was installed exactly as in the manual
using the 6.0.5/6.1.5 disks provided with the Accessory kit. The Quantum
hard disk has one of the more recent ROMs (version 501s), rather than
some of the earlier 400 series ROMs that did cause SCSI timeout errors.

I was initially little concerned when I tried to use the CD-ROM software
installer and it wouldn't let you click the install button - reporting
"You do not have an appropriate hardware or software configuration for this
installation. Check your manual to see what is required". However if click
customise it will let you install all the resources one by one without
complaining.

With the CD player switched on I restarted and rebooted A/UX with a Mac HFS
CD-ROM inserted and everything seemed to be OK. However, if you start A/UX
with the CD player switched on and no ROM inserted I seem to get erratic
read and write errors on my internal hard disk - reporting "Disk read error
c0d0s0 retry #1 successful" or "Disk write error c0d0s0 retry #1
successful". In addition I get crashes during login with what looks like the
Mac debugger box with its border being continously redrawn. You can use
apple-control-e to log out and try again.

I have tried reinstallation and new SCSI cable and terminator with no
success. However, if you remove the Apple CD-ROM driver from the Mac OS
System Folder the problem totally disappears which makes me very suspicious
about the compatibility of this driver with A/UX.

Does anyone have any ideas what might be causing this problem, is there
a more recent CD-ROM driver, has anyone encountered the same problem ?

I have wasted 2 days trying to sort out this problem, and would greatly
appreciate any help.

John Pearce

jpearce at uk.ac.ucl.cs

Computer Science Department
University College London
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