Thanks to the following for all your help!
Dr. Tom Blinn
alan_at_nabeth.cxo.dec.com
Wesley Darlington
Paul Tyler
My problem was that I was hanging the system when I tried to use
disklabel to configure the drive. My system is a 3rd party system
using the Alpha PC-164 board and an Intraserver ITI-3140U SCSI controller,
and DU 4.0B. My original post is appended.
In my case, the solution was to move the Seagate ST19171W to another
system with no other external devices, and it worked fine.
Either I had reached the cable limit, which is very possible, since
I had 3 internal drives, and an external Exabyte tape drive, or
I had run into some incompatibility with the Exabyte drive. The
Seagate also worked alone when I took the tape drive off, but we
need the tape there, so I just moved the drive.
Recommendations of things to check included:
1. Make sure total cable length not over the limit (1.5m for UW)
2. Check wide-to-narrow adapter, make sure it's not the problem.
3. Test on same system without the tape drive.
4. Try drive on another system.
Possible problem sources:
1. ITI driver
2. System component compatibilies
3. SCSI incompatibility between some of the devices.
4. SCSI cables, terminators, adapters
Thanks again!
Pam Price
MESO, Inc.
--------------------------------------------------------------
> Hi all,
>
> I'm trying to install a Seagate ST19171W external drive on a DEC
> Alpha (OS 4.0B), and even though the system sees it ok on
> bootup, it hangs when I try to do a 'disklabel -rw' or
> 'disklabel -e'. I noticed another user who had a similar
> problem, but he got bad results from the 'scu show cap',
> while mine seems ok (included below). I also tried the
> >>> show dev, but it doesn't show the nubmytes field for
> any of the drives. When I got the drive originally, they
> had left the internal termination on, so the system wouldn't
> even boot up. Once I got that off, the system comes up ok,
> I just can't configure the drive. I have an Exabyte on the
> end of the bus. The only other clue about the problem, is
> that I get the following message in the console window, when
> I try the disklabels, and I also saw this same message
> repeatedly when I was trying to boot with the internal termination
> on. Does this mean my drive is bad, or am I missing something
> that I need to set first? Is there anything else I can check
> with the scu command ? And is there any chance the drive was
> damaged by having internal and ext. termination?
>
> Thanks for any help!
> Pam Price
> MESO, Inc.
> email: pam_at_meso.com
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------
> bootup errors (when internal term. was on):
> Feb 4 17:27:22 indian vmunix: ITPSA0: HTH intr. on bus 0, SBCL = 0x21
> Feb 4 17:27:22 indian vmunix: cam_logger: CAM_ERROR packet
> Feb 4 17:27:22 indian vmunix: cam_logger: bus 0
> Feb 4 17:27:22 indian vmunix: itpsa SCSI HBA
> Feb 4 17:27:22 indian vmunix: HTH intr. on bus 0, SBCL = 0x21
>
> error when running disklabel, which hangs system (after term. fixed):
> Feb 5 16:44:08 indian vmunix: ITPSA0: HTH intr. on bus 0, SBCL = 0x20
> --------------------------------------------------------------
>
> # /sbin/scu
> scu> set nexus bus 0 target 3 lun 0
> Device: ST19171W, Bus: 0, Target: 3, Lun: 0, Type: Direct Access
> scu> show cap
>
> Disk Capacity Information:
>
> Maximum Capacity: 17783112 (8683.160 megabytes)
> Block Length: 512
> scu> show device
>
> Inquiry Information:
>
> SCSI Bus ID: 0
> SCSI Target ID: 3
> SCSI Target LUN: 0
> Peripheral Device Type: 0 (Direct Access)
> Peripheral Qualifier: 0 (Peripheral Device Connected)
> Device Type Modifier: 0
> Removable Media: No
> ANSI Version: 2 (Complies to ANSI X3.131-1994, SCSI-2)
> ECMA Version: 0
> ISO Version: 0
> Response Data Format: 2 (SCSI-2)
> Terminate I/O Process: 0
> Asynchronous Notification: 0
> Additional Length: 139
> Soft Reset Support: No
> Command Queuing Support: Yes
> Target Transfer Disable: Yes
> Linked Command Support: Yes
> Synchronous Data Transfers: Yes
> Support for 16 Bit Transfers: Yes
> Support for 32 Bit Transfers: No
> Relative Addressing Support: No
> Vendor Identification: SEAGATE
> Product Identification: ST19171W
> Firmware Revision Level: 0024
Received on Mon Feb 09 1998 - 17:56:18 NZDT