SCSI HD difficulties

[MikeModified]

I recently purchased another (!) jr, with a Quadram 2nd drive setup (giving me the trifecta) and a JrCaptain for 640k.

Since I had an older "good" SCSI drive, just to try something different, I purchased the BRIDGE-88 parallel-to-SCSI adapter that Mike B recently pointed out on eBay. I got it mostly installed but have run into a roadblock. The installations seems to be correct, but the computer doesn't recognize the existence of the drive.

config.sys:

device=jrconfig.sys /v32 /r /d2
device=epst.sys /R9 /W1
device=apsihdrm.sys

Boot results:

ASPI Manager Version 5.00
Copyright (C) ... (etc)

Read mode specified: PS/2 Normal
Write mode specified: WRITE Normal

Checking for the presence of adapter...

Read mode detected: PS/2 Fast
Write mode detected: WRITE Fast

HostAdapter #1: SHUTTLE EPST, Baseaddress = 0378, IRQ = 7, Daisy ID = 0
SCSI #7: Harddisk, IMPRIMIS94601-15

APSI Manager installed successfully.

Checking devices connected ...

Drives supported by the Device driver :

SCSI ID #7 @HA #1: 1040 MG, 1007 Cyl, 32 Heads, 63 Sec/Trk

Physical Drive(s) Present :1
Logical Drive(s) Present :0

And there I sit. I assume that Daisy ID means that it's first on the daisy chain. But "Logical Drive(s) Present :0" seems to be the problem. Don't know where to go/what to do now.

Mike

[Brutman]

I think that looks pretty good actually. It is telling you that you have one physical drive, but no drive letters were assigned.

Did you partition and format the drive in a way that is compatible with the DOS you are booting the PCjr with?

The relevant parts of my config.sys are:

stacks=0,0
files 20
buffers 30
lastdrive=k
device=epst.sys
device=aspihdrm.sys /r3

That's close enough to what you have so I'm betting it is just an FDISK or DOS version issue.

BTW, welcome to the club. I don't know anybody else who has a Bridge-888.

[MikeModified]

I left the last step out:

fdisk<enter> BEEP! No fixed disks present.

Thanks for the welcome.

Mike

[Brutman]

Well, it's not really a fixed disk as far as FDISK is concerned - it's not being supported by the BIOS. It's a logical drive, but not a BIOS drive.

You need to move it to another machine to fdisk it. I don't think that the provided utilities to fdisk and format the drive run on a PCjr.

[MikeModified]

Ah! 16 pages of documentation containing little to zero useable information.

Move it to a 486 DOS machine, run SHTLMAN. It "optimizes" at 306 KB/sec read and write. Update the config.sys? - yes.

Prep media for dos - yes.

Checking adapter hardware....

Large red "Error Report" window:

DESCRIPTION
Adapter not installed properly, or no devices.

SEVERITY
Further program execution is not possible.

<end of program>

The software communicated properly with the adapter AND the hard drive. Scratching my head.

Mike

[MikeModified]

"Prep media" calls the HDPREP program. With some careful stacking of various items from the supplied 1.44 disk, HDPREP can be run on a dual 360k system.

The results are exactly the same.

Mike

[MikeModified]

Boot results:

ASPI Manager Version 5.00
Copyright (C) ... (etc)

Read mode specified: PS/2 Normal
Write mode specified: WRITE Normal

Checking for the presence of adapter...

Read mode detected: PS/2 Fast
Write mode detected: WRITE Fast

HostAdapter #1: SHUTTLE EPST, Baseaddress = 0378, IRQ = 7, Daisy ID = 0
SCSI #7: Harddisk, IMPRIMIS94601-15

<sigh> This VC world may be too complicated for me. ; - )

I just changed the drive from SCSI #7 to SCSI #6 and immediate gratification: partition & format; the 486 sees drive D as 1G+

Three switches: 2^2+2^1+2^0 = 7, outside of the 0-6 useable.

Thanks for the assistance, Mike. In the morning, I'll repartition into smaller jr-sized bites then move it back over to the jr.

Mike

[MikeModified]

Solved!

Checking devices connected ...

SCSI ID #6 @HA #1: 1040 MB, 977 Cyl, 33 Heads, 63 Sec/Trk

Physical Drive(s) Present :1
Logical Drive(s) Present :8

Drive(s) supported from D: to K:

Mike