On 2009-08-26, Dave <foo@coo.com> wrote:
> DoN. Nichols wrote:
>> On 2009-08-18, Bart <xc68000@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> On Aug 18, 7:38 am, John Burns <j...@unixnerd.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>>>> I have a Blade 1000 that won't recognise any SCSI DVD/CD drives I
>>>> connect to it's internal 50 pin SCSI cable. I'm using probe-scsi from
>>>> the bios prompt.
>>>>
>>>> I've tried a Toshiba DVD from a similar machine and an older Toshiba CD.
>>>> Both are on ID 6 with terminaton off and parity on. Drives work fine on
>>>> other unix boxes.
>>>>
>>>> It sees it's internal hard drive OK.
Hmm ... seeing its internal hard drive does not count. On the
SB-1000, SB-2000 and Sun Fire 280R, that is an FC-AL drive with a
different internal bus and controller. The SB-1000, SB-2000, and
SF-280R have two SCSI buses on a single chip. One is the internal scsi
bus for the DVD-ROM and an optional internal tape. The other is the
external 68-pin SCSI for whatever you may hang on it. I don't know
whether the line drivers are part of that chip, or are additional logic.
(Schematics of the board are rather in the same category as hen's
teeth.) I'm not even sure which chip *is* the dual SCSI host adaptor.
Now -- if you plugged a 50-pin SCSI hard drive where the DVD-ROM
drive is, and it sees that, but does not see the DVD-ROM, then you have
a strange failure indeed.
>>>> Any ideas?
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> Who needs a life when you've got Unix? :-)
>>>> Email: j...@unixnerd.demon.co.uk, John G.Burns B.Eng, Bonny Scotland
>>>> Web :http://www.unixnerd.demon.co.uk- The Ultimate BMW Homepage!
>>>> Need Sun or HP Unix kit?http://www.unixnerd.demon.co.uk/unix...athspey.co.uk- Quality Binoculars at a Sensible price
>>> In my experience, not all SCSI CD-ROMS/DVD drives work in Sun boxes.
>>> I've tried a couple of 4x and 16x from various Apple machines I had
>>> and they never worked, although they work fine on HP and IBM boxes.
>>>
>>> However the 16x from my Ultra 60 worked fine in my sunblade 2k.
>>> Pretty sure there is some info on the web about block structure
>>> requirements etc. and you'll need a sun compatible drive.
>>
>> That applies when booting from the drive -- but probe-scsi-all
>> should at least *see* it.
>>
>> Two things apply when booting:
>>
>> 1) The default block size needs to be 512 bytes, instead of 2048
>> bytes which is the default for many non-Sun supplied ones. Once
>> the system is booted, it has a more complex driver, which can
>> tell the drive to switch to 512 byte block sizes. And I *think*
>> that the SB-1K/SB-2K/SF-280R systems are smart enough to tell
>> the drives even from the boot command.
>
> I used a SCSI->IDE converted in my Blade 2000 (basically the same
> machine as a 1000).
The Sun Fire 280R is also the same machine, except in a
horizontal format for rack mounting. Minor differences, such as the
internal FC-AL disks being 0 and 1, instead of 1 and 2, and the Firewire
connectors are blocked on the 280R.
> That worked fine, and allowed me to use a double
> layer DVD drive.
Does this include booting from it? I am also using a IDE R/+/-W
DVD drive:
with an ACARD IDE->50pinSCSI bridge card, and I have verified that I can
boot from it. I recently installed the most recent Solaris 10 from DVDs
with no problems, so it does boot from that -- suggesting that the OBP
is now smart enough to request a change to 512 byte block size -- or to
boot from 2048 byte blocks. :-)
This one works in my setup -- but you might need to modify it depending
on which bus you connect it to. IIRC, this is connected to a dual SCSI
SE/LVD card in one of the PCI instead of the 68-pin external SCSI bus on
the system card, so you would need a different path. Look at the path
listed by devalias at the OBP level, and see what the one is for the
internal cdrom. It will be the same path, but a "scsi@?,1" if the one for
the internal cdrom alias is "scsi@?" without the ",1".
Anyway -- you type "boot cdrom1" instead of "boot cdrom" for he
external one.
Yep -- I just checked, and the only thing hooked to the system
board's external 68-pin SCSI is an old HP C5110A ScanJet, which works
nicely with SANE.
> I never set the block size on that SCSI->IDE converter
> (I'm not even sure I could have done so), but it worked fine. So I think
> the Blade 2000 is smart enough to work with anything.
In particular, it is the OBP which needs to be smart enough for
booting, while the OS can handle things much more complex. (IIRC, the
OBP firmware had to be updated to boot from DVD-ROMs as well in earlier
systems like the Ultra-60.
> An obvious problem could be a faulty terminator or cable.
I have encountered a system where the half of the on-board SCSI
which talked to the internal SCSI was bad. This was why I learned how
to configure for booting from an external drive.
> If John has an
> external enclosure which would take the drive, I would be tempted to
> make it an external device and see if that works. If so, it would
> suggest the drive is suitable, but a cable issue.
The cable, or the on-board SCSI host adaptor. It was the
availability of a spare internal cable with built-in terminator which
enabled me to diagnose the bad internal SCSI, when neither cable worked,
neither of two drives worked internally, but either drive would work in
an external housing on the 68-pin external SCSI bus.
Enjoy,
DoN.
--
Email: <dnichols@d-and-d.com> | Voice (all times): (703) 938-4564
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Re: Sun Blade 1000 SCSI DVD/CD problem...... 
Linear Mode
