[H-GEN] scsi drive won't spin up

[Tony Nugent]

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On Wed Jan 29 2003 at 16:24, "James C. McPherson" wrote:

> > I have a scsi drive here (18Gb seagate barracuda) that I've tried
> > connecting to an adaptec aha-2940UW controller card (which works
> > fine, although it does not seem to have a bios on it).  When the
> > aic7xxx driver tries to initialise the drive, it complains that it
> > fails to spin up.  (I would try diagnostics on it, but without a
> > bios on the card I can't easily do this).

> I'd be more suspicious of the card to start with. Do you have another scsi
> card you can attach the two drives to in order to test them? If the drives
> work fine on another controller then you've got an interesting aic7xxx.

No, I don't have another card here that can take 68-pin scsi.

> Do you have the lastest driver and firmware patches installed for the
> card? Is the aic7xxx driver the right one to use for this card (I wouldn't
> have thought so...)

I should have been more clear... the card itself works just fine
(and has for me for quite a while, a "hand-me-down").

The card is working right now with two scsi cdroms (one is a burner)
and two other drives (another seagate and an ibm DFHS, both rather
old and small but they do work).  From dmesg and the bootup
messages...

  ahc_pci:0:14:0: Host Adapter Bios disabled.  Using default SCSI device parameters
  scsi0 : Adaptec AIC7XXX EISA/VLB/PCI SCSI HBA DRIVER, Rev 6.2.8
          <Adaptec 2940 Ultra SCSI adapter>
          aic7880: Ultra Wide Channel A, SCSI Id=7, 16/253 SCBs

I'm not sure why it says that its bios is disabled.  If I cat
/proc/scsi/aic7xxx/1 it says (in part)...

  Adaptec AIC7xxx driver version: 6.2.8
  aic7880: Ultra Wide Channel A, SCSI Id=7, 16/253 SCBs

  No Serial EEPROM
  [ ... lots of other technical stuff about negotiation settings ... ]

Should this card have a working bios on it?  If so, does anyone know
how I can go about flashing one onto it?  (I guess I should check
adaptec's web site... I'll do that).

The drive with the bad first sector came from a now-retired windows
box (that's why I now have it).  The barracuda that won't spin up
(also a hand-me-down) was supposed to be working just fine.

> hth,
> James C. McPherson

Cheers
Tony

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