ISC won't install on 330meg ESDI

[martin.zam]

Article: 9512 of comp.unix.i386
From: brad at microm.UUCP (Bradley W. Fisher)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.i386
Subject: ISC won't install on 330meg ESDI
Keywords: ISC ESDI woes
> 
> 
> The facts:
> 	16 mhz Intel 301 386 motherboard
> 	8 meg of ram
> 	Phoenix BIOS ver 3.03
> 	Wangtek 5099EK
> 	currently running 2 85meg MFM hard disks OK.
> 	ISC 2.0.2
> 
> The problem:
> 	Cannot get ISC to load onto new Maxtor 4380E hard disk with
> 	Adaptec 2322B controller.
> 
> The procedures and symptoms:
> 	Boot MSDOS, run debug g=c800:5 to use controller's BIOS for low
> 	level format routine. Ran 48 hour surface scan with Speed Stor,
> 	no problem, no new bad sectors discovered.

Brad,
  This whole problem exists because ISC has a bug in their low-level format
  program.  It cannot successfully format ESDI drives!  This is, of course,
  an undocumented "feature" of ISC.  There are other "features" in ISC.  I
  have solved some other problems, but the answer you need follows:

  You need to Boot MSDOS, run debug g=c800:5 and using the controller's BIOS
  routines "Turn on 63 Sector translation".  This is one of the options in
  a submenu.  This fakes the system into seeing more (logical) sectors per
  track so that the number of cylinders is (logically) less than 1024.

  This step is usually done right after the low-level format, so if you've
  done anything that affects the low-level format, it may have to be re-run.

  This is how i got my M9380 drive to work with ISC.  Also, if you get
  messages about "Too many bad blocks" from ISC, I know how to fix this
  so it will still install.  Post or Email if you see this one.  It's
  a LU-LU.  Hope this helps.

> 	Boot ISC, sees drive as 1224 x 15 x 36, ISC says you can't use 
> 	more than 1024 cylinders, so I tell it there are only 1024. Run
> 	fdisk, use 100% for UNIX, start cylinder 1, end cylinder 1021.
> 	Activate UNIX partition. Set up file systems, 60 cyl for swap
> 	(16 meg), 75 cyl for root (20 meg), 443 for usr (122 meg), 442
> 	for usr2 (122 meg). ISC creates root filesystem OK, labels it,
> 	and makes lost+found. Creates usr filesystem OK labels it, BUT
> 	the following error is displayed ...
> 	
> NOTICE: free block read error on Primary AT Hard Disk DISK unit 0, partition 3
> 
> mount failed
> mount of usr failed
> 
> 	... and lost+found is not created. Then ISC merrily goes on trying to
> 	install files on the hard disk (great error checking in that script!).
> 	Never does try to create usr2.
> 
> Other goodies:
> 	The same system installs SCO XENIX fine. Installing with a 170 meg
> 	Micropolis 1355 (1024 x 8 x 35) works just fine too. All filesystems
> 	are created properly.
> 	I've tried everything I know of to make this work (like disabling the
> 	BIOS on the Adaptec,knocking down the number of cylinders a little more)	and keep getting the same results.
> 
> I'm not trying to do ISC bashing here, but no we don't want to spend several
> hundred dollars to *maybe* get an answer from ISC to *solve* this problem. If
> no one on the net has a clue as to what is happening here, we'll have to solve
> this the way we've solved other problems ISC couldn't give us a good answer on 
  ISC didn't have a clue.  Adaptec didn't have a clue(I have the same
  controller).  I will also warn you to turn off the read-ahead cache on this
  controller card.  I have heard that this can cause UNIX systems to get flakey.

> in the past ... switch over to SCO XENIX. A least our money will be going 
> towards a product I know will install and run on this configuartion the *first*
> time. I would like to see this work though ... really ;-)
> 
> --
> I'm just a wanna be UNIX guru (IJWBUG)               | Micro Maintenance, Inc.
> 						     | 2465 W. 12th St. #6
> 	   -== Brad Fisher ==- 		             | Tempe, Arizona  85281
>      ...!asuvax!mcdphx!hrc!microm!brad		     | 602/894-5526
> 
> 

					Martin Zam
					(201)564-2554