Conner Hard Disk

[John C. Archambeau]

jim at bahamut.fsc.com (James O'Connor) writes:
>In article <1718 at engage.enet.dec.com>, stephen at hantsq.dec.com (Stephen Wong) writes:
>> 
>> Does anyone know whether SCO Unix/386 Ver.3.2 can be installed on Conner hard
>> disks (those with embedded controller)?  I'm particularly interested whether
>> the 200MB type can be used or not!  Any other comments on Conner are welcome!
>
>If by "embedded controller" you are talking about an IDE (Intelligent Device
>Electronics, I believe) drive, then it hould not be a problem because I was
>told by a Tandy representative that the IDE host interface mimicks a
>WD-1003 controller to the software, thus you should be able to install Unix
>and tell it you have an ST-506 style root drive.  This, of course, assumes
>you have a machine with an IDE host adapter.
>
>If by "embedded controller" you are talking about a SCSI disk drive, then
>you would need to add an Adaptec 154x type SCSI host adapter to your
>system.  Then, when you install Unix, tell it you have a SCSI root drive,
>and away you go!
>
>The machine I'm on right now uses an Adaptec 1542A (SCSI, plus floppy
>controller) and the 105MB 3.5" Conner SCSI drive.  I assume that their 200MB
>offering would have basically the same controller and SCSI interface, so you
>shouldn't have any problems using it.

Hmm, I wouldn't quite say a WD1003, but a WD1006.  Every IDE drive I've
formatted I've put at a 1:1 interleave and it's happy.  Also, a lot of IDE's
have what is called a native mode (where your BIOS parameters are the IDE's
actual physical parameters) and a translation mode (where your IDE will mimick
a certain drive).  I know the Seagate ST157A's and Conner CP-3184 have
translation modes.  The CP-3184 will mimick an ST4096 and it will be perfectly
happy.  Did the best method of proving that it will work.  Compsurf'ed a pair
of them for Novell ELS Level II and it was perfectly happy with it.  Novell
was just as happy with the CP-3184's than it was with a pair of ST4096's.  If
the drive passes Compsurf, I'm willing to bet money that SCO Xenix will be
just as happy with the drive.
 
Only thing that annoys me is that you can't use 4 IDE's, you can't have a
secondary IDE adaptor in your machine, but you can have a secondary ST412/506
controller off of Int 15.
 
     // JCA

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