Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!mips!daver!news.chips.com!chuckl
From: chuckl@chips.com (Chuck Linsley)
Newsgroups: comp.periphs.scsi
Subject: Re: Problems with Adaptec 1542B and Seagate ST-251N
Message-ID: <1207@news.chips.com>
Date: 15 Nov 90 20:15:55 GMT
References: <46492@sequent.UUCP>
Reply-To: chuckl@news.UUCP (Chuck Linsley)
Distribution: na
Organization: Chips and Technologies, San Jose, CA
Lines: 29

In article <46492@sequent.UUCP> norsk@sequent.uucp (Doug Thompson) writes:
>	I purchased a ST251N and ST01 some 18 months ago. It worked
>	just fine. Then I recently purchased an AHA-1542B and a problem
>	shows up. The drive fails the VERIFY cmd (op=2Fh) in that
>	the drive light stays on and the onboard (and the device
>	driver from adaptec wo/BIOS on) times out indicating the
>	VERIFY cmd failed. The light remains on until reset.
>	This occurs trying to utilize both my FXPREP partitioning
>	prgram from Tandon and Adaptec's AFDISK.
>
>	Now, Seagate says they will  'repair' the board for $180 which
>	is just a board replacement, etc, and that their drives
>	support VERIFY. 

At my previous employer, we discovered this same problem with the 
ST277N.  When we issued a 2F command to the drive, using any host
adapter, it failed.  We concluded that the ST277N (and apparantly
the ST251N, also) *don't* support the VERIFY command, no matter
what Seagate says.  We added special code to our host adapter software
to translate a VERIFY command into a READ command and discard the
data if the INQUIRY at initialization time returned a model number
of "ST277N".  Hm, maybe we need to check for "ST251N", too.

Chuck Linsley
chuckl@chips.com  (Don't trust the Reply-To: line)
Chips and Technologies, Inc.
Mass Storage Operation
Disclaimer:  Any opinions expressed in this article are those of the
author, and not necessarily those of my employer.