Xref: utzoo comp.sys.amiga.tech:140 comp.sys.amiga:16960 Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!mailrus!ames!lll-tis!elxsi!matt From: matt@elxsi.UUCP (Matt Shaver) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.tech,comp.sys.amiga Subject: Re: Getting a Mac Hyperdrive to work with a A2090 Message-ID: <759@elxsi.UUCP> Date: 30 Mar 88 01:04:51 GMT References: <2955@gryphon.CTS.COM> <8633@g.ms.uky.edu> <3006@gryphon.CTS.COM> Reply-To: matt@elxsi.UUCP (Matt Shaver) Organization: ELXSI Super Computers, San Jose Lines: 62 In article <3006@gryphon.CTS.COM> jdm@gryphon.CTS.COM (John Mesiavech) writes: > > A Question for the Net: > > At the computer store where I now work, we are trying to put a system >together for a customer. This system includes a Bridgeboard, HardCard >on the IBM side, an A2090 on the Amiga side, extra drive, and an external >SCSI drive on the A2090. We are trying to use a Hyperdrive, which is >a Macintosh SE SCSI-compatable external hard drive that uses a >Seagate ST251N drive internally. We have the Hyperdrive set as >SCSI device one, and we have out Mountlists set with the Unit parameter >= 3, which according to the manual references the first device on the >external Mac SCSI bus. When we try to PREP the drive, the Amiga locks >up solidly, and the drive sits idle. The drive is correctly terminated, >and the drive itself is tested and known to work on a Macintosh. >The DB-25 connector on the back of the A2090 is supposed to be MAC >SCSI compatable, so does anyone out there know what's going wrong? > I am using an ST251N drive internal to the A2000. I have not had PREP hang up but have had some other problems which I can relate which may (or may not) help you. As far as I can tell the drive physically has: 4 heads 26 sectors per track 818 cylinders You would normally expect a drive of this conformation to have 104 sectors per cylinder. However if you divide the sectors per drive, 84254, by the number of cylinders, 818, you get 103, one less than you would expect. So when I indicated in the mountList that it had 4 heads and 26 sectors per track and 818 cylinders the format would hang around cylinder 811 or so because it was really addressing off the end of the drive. To get the most efficient use of the drive I tell the software the drive has: 4 heads 17 sectors per track 1239 cylinders This factors out to 84252 sectors which is only 2 short of the 84254 sectors per drive it is specified to have. The other problem I had was that I could never create a second partition on the drive. Whenever I tried to format the second partition I would get a GURU. I triple checked that the mountlist entries and entries to PREP did not have any overlaping cylinders but with no success. Luckally I did not really want to setup secondary partitions any way so I just left it with one 40M partion and have had no other problems except.... I did have a problem trying to use a non protected version of DPaint II on the hard disk. Whenever I tried to load non- lo-res pictures from the hard disk I would get a system requestor indicating that the volume got a read/ write error. Now this is the only time I have gotten any read/write errors from the hard disk and tried loading DPaint and the picture drawers at different stages of filling the hard disk and had the same problem. I have convinced myself that it is a problem in the way that DPaint is accessing the drive. Anyone else had this problem? Good luck and thanks, Matthew.