A while ago I tried to attach a scsi 1 tape drive to the end of the scsi
chain of a PWS433 that had a scsi 3 dual external drive attached. An
init/ boot failed miserably with screensful of a repeating error I don't
recall. Sho dev found all devices, and no conflicting scsi id's. Even
removing the external drives and the tape would not allow a boot, and I
ended up needing to boot from CD and doing an fsck (with crossed
fingers) several times. To perform the backup I had to remove the external
drive and attach just the tape unit.
The situation has come up again, but this time the external drive also
needs backup. The question is, is there a way at the console to test
whether or not there will be bad cable or cable-length problems before
trying to boot?
I'm thinking of the console script "testdisk" or something like that which
I saw the last time the system was at the console prompt --
a) is it nondestructive, or is it meant only for a disk with replaceable
or dontcare data?
b) is there any reason to expect that it would corrupt any less than the
boot sequence?
Received on Wed Mar 31 1999 - 22:45:27 NZST