Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wasatch!uplherc!esunix!blgardne
From: blgardne@esunix.UUCP (Blaine Gardner)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Strange FORMAT problem with A2090A SCSI
Keywords: help!
Message-ID: <1289@esunix.UUCP>
Date: 26 Apr 89 05:16:19 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: Evans & Sutherland Computer Corporation
Lines: 62

I've just added a SCSI drive (CDC Wren III, 155 meg) to my A2000/A2090A/
KS+WB 1.3/ASDG 2MI system. I've been using an ST506 drive for months
without any problems, but I've just hit a strange problem with
formatting the SCSI drive.

Format drive FH0: name Big0 FFS

displays the message "Formatting cyl 4, 259 to go" and then terminates.
(No error message is displayed, and WHY has nothing useful to say.)
I've tried every trick I can think of, including (GASP!) a stone stock
1.3 WB disk, but I always get the same results. In desperation, I tried
adding the "quick" keyword to the command above, and it worked! 

Prep worked fine, and so did formatting a 2 cylinder DH2:, so why can't
I get a regular format to work on the other partitions?

Do I need to do a full format, since the quick format seemed to do the
trick? Am I missing possible bad blocks by using the quick option? I'd
much rather spend hours formatting and get the bad blocks mapped out
than run into trouble later.
 
Here's my mountlist entry in case I've made some stupid blunder there,
but I just cloned my working ST506 entry, and made the necessary
changes.

/* SCSI drives are units 3 and up */
RES2:     Device = hddisk.device
           Unit   = 3
           Flags  = 0
           Surfaces  = 9
           BlocksPerTrack = 35
           Reserved = 2
           Interleave = 0
           LowCyl = 0
           HighCyl = 1
           Buffers = 1
           BufMemType = 0
#
/* First FFS partition on the CDC Wren III drive */
CD0:       Device = hddisk.device
           Unit   = 3
           Flags  = 0
           Surfaces  = 9
           BlocksPerTrack = 35
           Reserved = 2
           Interleave = 0
           LowCyl = 4
           HighCyl = 263
           Buffers = 1
           BufMemType = 0
           Stacksize = 4000
           GlobVec = -1
           FileSystem = L:FastFileSystem
           DosType = 0x444F5301
#



-- 
Blaine Gardner @ Evans & Sutherland    580 Arapeen Drive, SLC, Utah 84108
Here: utah-cs!esunix!blgardne   {ucbvax,allegra,decvax}!decwrl!esunix!blgardne
"Nobody will ever need more than 64K."    "Nobody needs multitasking on a PC."