[SunRescue] sun3/50 booting problems

[Robert D. Keys]

> I have this old sun3/50, and I am trying to boot it off of the big honking
> old drives I have. I have a sun3 scsi to centronics-50 cable, but not
> sun-sun3 cables. So I opened the case of the drive/tape unit with a
> micropolis 1550 ESDI drive and put a internal to centronics-50 cable in
> there, and have been attempting to use that, both with and without the
> terminator.

On the old drives, that sort of cabling should work fine.  They are only
scsi 1.  Make sure the polarity of the cabling is correct.

> The best I can get out of the thing is "Waiting for drive to spin up...",
> which it never does. I see the drive apparently spinning up (lots of
> activity on the little red light). It looks like it is at SCSI ID 0 (b
> sd(0,0,0) seems to get results)
> 
> I have tried a few different values for this, what should it be? Is there
> an LUN here? Maybe I am missing something. Does the drive need some jumper
> to tell it to spin up on poweron? I have been unable to find any dox for
> the micropolis 1550 online.
> 
> -That Damned Yankee Bob Keyes

Your drive is probably a 1558, and there is a spec sheet for it,
on-line but I forget whether it is at the seagate site or where.
There are setup sheets from sun for the MD21 and the 1558 drive,
and the MT02 and Wangtek or Archive tape drives.

If you are using the ESDI drives, there must also be an MD21 controller
below the drive in the middle, under the metal mounting shell.  Also,
with a tape in there, there should be a MT02 controller on the underside
of the metal mount shelf.  Both these controller boards need power
connections.  Sometimes those get loose, or forgotten about.

Check the MD21 controller to make sure it is set to controller 0.
Sometimes, the boxes were set up to be the second box on the line,
and the ID would be different from what was normally expected.
I just happen to have a pair of 1558's in my car and I will check
the jumpering on them (wait......)  nnnnn   nope, I have 1355's
in the car.  From memory... the 1558 needs to be addressed as drives
0 and 1 and the last drive of the pair terminated.  If you have a
tape in the case, the drive is id 0 and terminated.  Look on the
jumper block (may be a switch block, dont remember), and see if
the first/second/third position is jumpered or closed.  On the
MD21 controller, it needs to have only one switch set, if memory
is correct (I have the setup docs at home, but it has been several
months since I looked at them).  The first drive case on the line should
have the switch opened, and the second drive case on the line should
have the switch closed, I think...  With both the tape and the HD in
the case, the TAPE controller MT02 is the one with the terminator
(not the MD21) and it also has one switch set, if memory is correct,
and is the end device on the scsi line.

That is all that comes to mind, from memory.  I can check the docs
tonight, if noone else has them..... let me know if you stil need
the info.

That Southern Genteelman Mint Julep a'Sippin'  Bob Keys.

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