Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!pyrdc!pyrnj!hhb!bvk
From: bvk@hhb.UUCP (Brett Kuehner)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: GVP controller comments/questions
Keywords: GVP, controller, Seagate
Message-ID: <240@hhb.UUCP>
Date: 8 Jun 89 16:12:47 GMT
References: <14376@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU>
Organization: HHB Systems, Mawah, NJ
Lines: 56

In article <14376@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU>, whitcomb@vivaldi.Berkeley.EDU (Gregg Whitcomb) writes:
> Well, I decided to purchase the GVP A2000/2M/Ok controller and have
> some comments/questions:
> 
> I also purchased a ST277N drive.  The first drive I received passed
> the "low-level format SFORMAT" step in the GVP installation setup.
> However, the amigados format command bombed out early on during the
> first partition format.  I was able to try different partitions and
> get it to somewhat work, although not to my satisfaction (I ordered
> the drive from ComputAbility).  I contacted both ComputAbility and
> GVP.  ComputAbility said that the GVP software should have remapped
> the bad blocks (apparently the trumpcard s/w does) and GVP said that
> the Seagate drive firmware did not do its job during the low-level
> format.  I sent the drive back, and $17 worth of postage later 
> received another ST277N drive. This one worked. (well, the amigados
> format command did bomb out on one partition, but trying it again
> it passed okay).

This is exactly the setup I have, and almost exactly the problems I've had.
GVP claimed (in October) that they would eventually have a program or patch
to handle bad block mapping, but I've not heard anything from them about it,
and I call their BBS occasionally to see if there are any new developments.

I still have a few cylinders that are unusable becuase of formatting errors,
but other than an infrequent "read retry", I don't have any problems. I do
wish I could map out the bad blocks, though.

> 
> comments:
> 
> The GVP installation software is automatic (if you don't have problems
> or want to do something different than their fixed procedure).  
I have their older software (before autoboot and autoinstall) and I used
that to play around with partitions to discover exactly where my bad blocks
were. Unfortunately, I don't remember what I did to install that info in the
autoboot info blocks (they are really called Rigid Disk Blocks, I think). It
is possible to play around with mountlist parameters by giving an option to
GVPPrepHD (I forget the option, but it has to be in upper case). Try a
'GVPPrepHD ?', and then try a few options, be careful not to trash your disk
by changing partition sizes.

> At least they could provide for more advanced users: source code for
> installation programs (they're selling the hardware, not the software!),
> prompting for cylinder counts instead of megabyte sizes, etc.
> 
> 
> -Gregg Whitcomb (whitcomb@ic.berkeley.edu)

I have the source to sformat, it came with my install disk, in the
GVPscripts directory. The GVPPrepHD source would be nice, though.

		Brett
--
Brett Kuehner, HHB Systems, Mawah, NJ
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