Re: Stupid SCSI questions

2001-09-02 Thread Nestor soriano

   The partition table of Gouda/Novaxis/Fudeba SCSI interfaces
 are standard? A decoding routine for MegaSCSI partition table will
 work on a Novaxis partition table?

I just know about partition tables created when formatting a disk with
MegaSCSI (except earlier versions of SFORM) and Sunrise IDE: both
devices create a standard partition table. You could even partition the
disk with a PC and be able to manage the partitions on the MSX (as long
as you use my PS.COM and NOT the original CP.COM with the MegaSCSI), and
vice versa: taht's the meaning of the word standard. ;-) I don't know
about Novaxis.

   If I have a SCSI interface and connect a HD to it, what is
 the ID of this HD? 0 or 1? None of them? Or the ID can be configured
 by the user? If I connect three SCSI HDs to my SCSI interface, can
 I set any ID for each one (5 for the first, 0 for the second and
 3 for the third, for example?)? Or they will have their ID automatically
 set by the interface (or their order in in the connection, I don't
 know): 0, 1 and 2 (or 1, 2 and 3, I don't know)?

Don't have headaches for this question, it is quite easy:

1) The ID of a SCSI device is either factory fixed (rare), configurable
by the user between two or three values to choose (the most common case)
or fully configurable to any value between 0 and 7.

2) The ID is configured via hard (a switch,  jumpers, or whatever) and
can NOT be modified in real time via soft when the device is running.

3) As long as you don't repeat numbers, you are free to choose all the
IDs on a SCSI chain as you want. No need to be consecutive, or to set
IDs progressively according to the phsysical structure of the chain, or
whatever. Remember however that the SCSI interface itself owns one of
the ID of the chain, that is, logically acts as one of the devices.

   3) Novaxis
  ---

Ooops! Zero knowledge about this, sorry! 8-)


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Re: Stupid SCSI questions

2001-09-02 Thread Tristan

  The partition table of Gouda/Novaxis/Fudeba SCSI interfaces
 are standard? A decoding routine for MegaSCSI partition table will
 work on a Novaxis partition table?
  Can someone send me the *physical* sector 0 of a SCSI HD
 connected to a Novaxis interface?

Novaxis, MK, Sunrise IDE, MegaSCSI all use different partitioning 
schemes, afaik.

I can send you this sector, if you tell me how to get it. If I had 
the appropriate bios call with parameters I should be able to get it.

  How many people you know that own a Novaxis interface? Do
 they have the latest BIOS (1.50) installed?
  Anybody knows what the LUN parameter (Logical UNit) means for
 the Novaxis interface? Is it important? The docs I have say that LUN
 is usually 0. Can I use LUN allways equal to 0?

Novaxis is pretty common in Holland. I have one, and yes, its bios is 
1.51 (there is a more recent version).

P.S. UZIX rules.


Tristan 

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Re: Stupid SCSI questions

2001-09-02 Thread Adriano Camargo Rodrigues da Cunha


Nestor,

The partition table of Gouda/Novaxis/Fudeba SCSI interfaces
  are standard? A decoding routine for MegaSCSI partition table will
  work on a Novaxis partition table?
 I just know about partition tables created when formatting a disk with
 MegaSCSI (except earlier versions of SFORM) and Sunrise IDE: both
 devices create a standard partition table.

Sunrise IDE uses a not-so-standard way. Jon confirmed that IDE
uses all available space in sector 0 to save partition table. So, a PC
will recognize only the first 4 partitions... But, doing this makes
partition locating faster on MSX. :)

 You could even partition the
 disk with a PC and be able to manage the partitions on the MSX (as long
 as you use my PS.COM and NOT the original CP.COM with the MegaSCSI)

If I had a MegaSCSI, of course I would use NestorPartitionChanger. :)

 [SCSI ID numbers]
 Don't have headaches for this question, it is quite easy:

Interesting... Thanks for the clear explanation.
So, SCSI users allways have to know the IDs of their SCSI devices?
If I had two SCSI HDs and a SCSI Zip Drive I must know that my first HD
has
ID 3, my second HD has ID 2, my ZIP drive has ID 7 AND that my SCSI
interface
has ID 4 (uff!) or I can't correcly select partition 3 of the ZIP-disk
on my ZIP drive? :P (ugh... should I write write the numbers in a
post-it
and put it in the front of my monitor? :P)


Adriano Camargo Rodrigues da Cunha  ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
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Re: Stupid SCSI questions

2001-09-02 Thread Patriek Lesparre


 So, SCSI users allways have to know the IDs of their SCSI devices?
If I had two SCSI HDs and a SCSI Zip Drive I must know that my first HD
has ID 3, my second HD has ID 2, my ZIP drive has ID 7 AND that my SCSI
interface has ID 4 (uff!) or I can't correcly select partition 3 of the 
ZIP-disk on my ZIP drive? :P (ugh... should I write write the numbers in a 
post-it and put it in the front of my monitor? :P)

SCSI ID's are prioritized, ID 7 has highest and ID 0 has lowest priority. 
Usually (but not always) the SCSI card has ID 7.

I used to run a BBS system with two BERT (MK) SCSI interfaces. 2 Computers 
accessing the same harddrive. I believe I had ID 7 and ID 6 for the 
interfaces (they're configurable at boottime) and ID 0 for the harddrive. 
Sometimes I would add a ZIPdrive at ID 5.
You could get SCSI bus-lockups if you wrote data to the harddrive at the 
same time from 2 computers, but there were never problems with reading.

Besides, there was a special DOS version (2.33 if I recall correctly) with 
which you could press CTRL-BS and it would solve the bus-lockup. With 
normal DOS I would just reset the computer that hung and everything was 
okay again.

Greetz,
 Patriek

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Re[2]: Stupid SCSI questions

2001-09-02 Thread Nestor soriano

   Sunrise IDE uses a not-so-standard way. Jon confirmed that IDE
 uses all available space in sector 0 to save partition table. So, a PC
 will recognize only the first 4 partitions... But, doing this makes
 partition locating faster on MSX. :)

Uf... I hate these non-standard tricks. Sorry. 8-)

MegaSCSI uses actually two systems at the same time to manage
partitions:

1) The mentioned standard partition table. This allows to use any
Mega-SCSI formatted device with a PC, and is the table used by my
PS.COM.
2) In each partition there is a hidden file, MEGASCSI.TBL, with
information about the physical starting sector of each partition. This
information is used by CP.COM, and is of course faster than reading the
standard partition table.

   So, SCSI users allways have to know the IDs of their SCSI devices?
  (ugh... should I write write the numbers in a
 post-it
 and put it in the front of my monitor? :P)

On the case of MegaSCSI, there is no need for this.

Using ESET you assign one device for each drive assigned to MegaSCSI. So
you must set up a device for each drive only once, and from that point,
worry only about partition numbers.

For example, say that you assign 6 drives for MegaSCSI. Then A: could be
ESE-RAM, B: and C: could be for hard disk, D: and E: could be for ZIP,
and F: for CD-ROM. You set up this using ESET, and after this, a PS C:7
(or CP C:7) means: I want to assign partition 7 of my HD to drive C:

However, PS.COM allows you to optionally specify the ID of a device to
be attached to one drive, together with the partition number. For
example PS C:7 5 means: let's attach device with ID 5 to drive C:, and
then select partition 7.


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Re: Stupid SCSI questions

2001-09-02 Thread Adriano Camargo Rodrigues da Cunha


Nestor,

 MegaSCSI uses actually two systems at the same time to manage
 partitions:

Yes, I know this. But using MEGASCSI.TBL is fudeba. :)

So, SCSI users allways have to know the IDs of their SCSI devices?
 On the case of MegaSCSI, there is no need for this.

Wait, wait... Forget about PS for a moment. I know that using
ESET and PS you can forget about SCSI IDs after the initial setup.
I'm asking all this things 'cause I'm writing MegaSCSI/Novaxis
drivers for UZIX. And I need to know about SCSI IDs handling.
In UZIX you don't have the 8 drives limitation. For example, take
the Sunrise IDE interface (that already have a driver in my UZIX): If I
had
two IDEs connected to my MSX, and each IDE had two HDs connected to it,
AND if each HD (total: 4) had 31 partitions, I would have 31*4=124
partitions to manage.
How do I handle this on UZIX? I have 124 devices in /dev:
/dev/idea0  (1st IDE, master device, partition 0)
/dev/idea1  (1st IDE, master device, partition 1)
...
/dev/idea30 (1st IDE, master device, partition 30)
/dev/ideb0  (1st IDE, slave device, partition 0)
/dev/ideb1  (1st IDE, slave device, partition 1)
...
/dev/ideb30 (1st IDE, master device, partition 30)
/dev/idec0  (2nd IDE, master device, partition 0)
/dev/idec1  (2nd IDE, master device, partition 1)
...
/dev/ideb30 (2nd IDE, master device, partition 30)
/dev/idec0  (2nd IDE, slave device, partition 0)
...
/dev/idec30 (2nd IDE, slave device, partition 30)

Ok, now I can access each partition of each HD of each IDE I
have on my MSX. Cool, huh?
Stupid usage example: I want to see the directory of the DOS
partition, FAT 16 bits, in my 2nd HD (slave device of first IDE),
partition 27. I would type

dosdir /dev/ideb27

Take the same example for MegaSCSI: each SCSI interface can
handle seven devices (six (right?), since one ID is used by the
interface
itself), and suppose I have two MegaSCSIs on my MSX:

/dev/scsia0 (first MegaSCSI, device with ID 0, partition 0)
...
/dev/scsia255   (first MegaSCSI, device with ID 0, partition 255)
/dev/scsib0 (first MegaSCSI, device with ID 1, partition 0)
...
/dev/scsib255   (first MegaSCSI, device with ID 0, partition 255)
...
[and so on, until /dev/scsio255]

So, if my SCSI ZIP drive, with ID 5, is connected to my MegaSCSI, the
corresponding entry of it is /dev/scsif### (where ### vary from 0 to
255). So,
I need to know that my ZIP drive has ID 5 or I can't access it because
I don't know which entry to use in /dev.
I hope I made de problem clear. If not, I can explain it again.
So, master-of-MegaSCSI-NestorPrograms ;), am I right about all this
things or there is an easier way to handle all this stuff?


Adriano Camargo Rodrigues da Cunha  ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
http://www.adrpage.cjb.net  MSX: more fun per less MHz

Aibohphobia n.  -  The fear of palindromes


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