Re: Adaptec AHA2940

Hugo Van den Berg (hbe@cypres.nl)
Mon, 6 Jan 1997 09:22:55 +0100 ()


On 2 Jan 1997, Larry McVoy wrote:

> Bernhard Rosenkraenzer (linux@startrek.in-trier.de) wrote:
> : On Wed, 1 Jan 1997, lonnie wrote:
>
> : > I have just installed a 2940 adapter in my system and installed slackware
> : > 3.0 on my scsi drive connected to it. The install went smoothly but when i
> : > booted it and tried to compile a kernel i got gpf's and kernel page request
> : > errors and my system immediately locks solid. I have thorougly checked my
> : > system and cant see a hardware problem to explain it. Ive been using the
> : > scsi drive for a few months connected to an AHA1542 adapter without any
> : > trouble. Is there a know bug with the driver for this card, and is there
> : > a fix for it?
>
> : I've been using an AHA2940 for ages, and it works fine. However, there are
> : some problems with changing SCSI adapters, e.g. a harddisk formatted with
> : an Adaptec controller sometimes won't work with a NCR controller, and vice
> : versa.
> : If you have any other OSes installed, see if they can access everything.
>
> Is there any place to go to get more info on this? I ran into this while
> trying to upgrade from an NCR to an AHA2940 and ended up giving up and
> going with the NCR (partly because I have two machines and wanted to be
> able to switch disks between both).

The problem has to do with disk layout (Cylinders, Heads, Sectors). Some
SCSI adapters use the traditional BIOS layout, but newer ones (like the
2940) are able to use an extended form of this. Disks that are partitioned
using one form cannot be used by an adapter using the other form.
Fortunately you can use SCSI-Select (Ctrl-A) on the 2940 to set it up for
traditional BIOS layout.

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Hugo Van den Berg - hbe@cypres.nl
Phone - +31 (0)30 - 60 25 400
Fax - +31 (0)30 - 60 50 799
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