I finally figured this out. It turns out that the IRQ jumper settings
on the card were mislabeled (i.e. the actual PCB silk screen is
wrong)!!! Apparently Adaptec shipped a bunch before catching the
error. Later boards, I am told, have a sticker with the correct
settings. The correct settings can be seen in the following:
ftp://ftp.adaptec.digisle.net/manuals/installation_guides/ava1505_ig.pdf
http://www.actel.com/apps/guru/sep97/rp243.html
Also, I read that the Windows and DOS drivers don't use the IRQ at all
so although it was always set differently than I thought, it didn't
matter in that environment. This certainly compounded the confusion.
In searching Dejanews, I see that the 152x series is notorious for
problems. I wonder how many are due to this IRQ confusion (which I
didn't find referenced in any Dejanews reply on the topic).
Neal
> Hi,
> I'm a Linux newbie and would greatly appreciate any help anyone can
> provide on this. I'm trying to install Mandrake 6.1 on a new system
> with a SCSI CD ROM drive (Toshiba 3701). I have an adaptec 1505 ISA
> card which worked fine under windows. I boot from the floppy when I get
> to the SCSI adapter screen I select Adaptec 152x. Autoprobe fails to
> detect the card, as is expected since the 1505 card has no BIOS. When I
> try "specify options" and type "aha152x=0x340,9,7,1" the CD ROM does
> light up briefly but the install program reports "can't find device
> anywhere on your system."
> Any suggestions on what else to try?
> Thanks,
> Neal
by