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From: fmcgee@cuuxb.ATT.COM (~XT6561110~Frank McGee~C23~L25~6326~)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.att,comp.unix.questions,comp.unix.i386
Subject: Re: Trouble with AT+T Unix fdisk on non AT+T Machine.
Summary: AT&T 386 Unix only supports WD 1003/5/6/7 controllers
Message-ID: <4347@cuuxb.ATT.COM>
Date: 2 Dec 89 20:36:23 GMT
Expires: 14 Dec 89 00:00:00 GMT
References: <4@dynasys.UUCP>
Reply-To: fmcgee@cuuxb.UUCP (Frank W. McGee)
Followup-To: comp.sys.att
Distribution: na
Organization: AT&T Computer Systems, Lisle, IL
Lines: 38

In article <4@dynasys.UUCP> jessea@dynasys.UUCP (Jesse W. Asher - Sysadmin.) writes:
>I recently got a job as an instructor at a technical school teaching basic  
>unix.  I'm familiar with other forms of unix (and xenix), but the school runs
>AT+T 6386s with AT+T Unix V/386.  I'm not familiar with the details of AT+T
>Unix (such as FACE, etc.) so I was given the complete set, manuals and all,
>to install on my own system at home (Everex 386/16 w/4MB memory).  The problem
>is that I can't get it to install.  What happens is that I boot from the 
>3.5" floppy and it goes to fdisk.  I tell fdisk what partition(s) I want and
>then hit "4", which is exit and update.  The system then hangs.  All it does
>is the drive light comes on and stays on.  It will not go off until I reboot
>the system.  Why does this happen?  Why will it not update the tables?  When
>I reboot the system after it hangs, everything was like it was before I tried
>to change it.  Do you think there could be compatibility problems?  I am
>running a Seagate 4096 with an OMTI MFM controller (which has done just fine
>under SCO Xenix).  Unfortunately, AT+T will not support me because I'm 
>putting their unix at a non AT+T system!  Anybody have any ideas?  Thanx for

The problem is probably your OMTI controller.  Most controllers
achieve Western Digital compatibility by using a ROM BIOS extension
(PROM) that resides on the controller.  This works fine under MSDOS,
but Unix doesn't use the BIOS so it doesn't have access to all the
fancy ROM routines.  This is why the Western Digital 1003/1006/1005/1007
controllers will work on almost every brand of 386 Unix.  Other
controllers (ie, Adaptec, OMTI, etc.) require a special device driver.

Other than your hd controller, that's probably the only problem.  I've
heard of other people running Unix on Everex 25 Mhz. clones.  The only
thing they had to do was to boot in slow mode, then after Unix booted
switch to fast 25 Mhz. mode.  This was because of timing problems with
the Everex floppy subsystem.  It sounds like the problem has been
solved by something Everex did though since you didn't mention having
to boot in slow mode.


-- 
Frank McGee, AT&T
Tier 3 Complementary Channel Sales Support
attmail!fmcgee