Very Computer

says...

Quote:

>Hello everyone,

>and sorry for this 'newbie'-type query!

>I'm trying to install Openserver but the install process won;t pick up
>my CD-ROM (it's a Mitsumi 2x which runs off a port on a Soundblaster 16)

>I had no problems doing this with Linux - I just used the sbpcd driver
>and everything worked fine. How do I do it with SCO?

>Regards

>Neil Cholerton

Hi !

Some days ago this post (again from Mr. Lubkin) reached
my news server; I think you'll find it useful.

=== cut here ===

Quote:> I've moved the CD-ROM to slave on the primary IDE port too, and still
get the
> data error.  But I haven't tried it there with the ahslink=wd yet.  I've
also
> put the CD-ROM on my Sound Blaster IDE on secondary and tertiary ports
but it
> doesn't even detect it there.  I've also put it on the IDE port on my
I/O card
> (this is normally disabled) and still doesn't detect it.

Sounds like you may just have one of the Mitsumi FX400 drives that
refuses to play nice.

One possibility: do you have control over the PIO modes used by any of
your IDE interfaces?  If I'm counting right, you have 4 IDE interfaces
(two on the Acculogic sIDE-2, one on SoundBlaster, one on an unspeficied
"I/O card").  Keep the current primary.  Disable all but one of the
others.  Whichever one you've left enabled, configure it for secondary
(port 177, IRQ 15).  Then configure it for a slow PIO mode.  If any of
them have PIO mode jumpers, that would be the best choice.  Another
possibility is: if you have DOS drivers for that particular board, put
them in your DOS config.sys or autoexec.bat, specifying a slow PIO for
the CD-ROM.  Boot DOS.  Then warm-boot to the OpenServer install floppy.
If you end up using the SoundBlaster port, you'll *have* to use this
technique because that port won't be enabled at all, won't be seen by
OpenServer, until after you've run its DOS driver.

I'm only guessing about PIO modes.  The "wd" driver doesn't attempt to
program PIO modes at all, it assumes the BIOS will have set that up
properly.  We're hearing a lot of reports about FX400's.  In various IDE
FAQs, I've read that there are some drives which claim to support faster
PIO modes than they can really handle.  If this is one of them, perhaps
the BIOS queries, learns what PIO mode to program the port for, programs
it for that mode, and then the drive can't keep up.  I like that
explanation because it fits the pattern we're seeing, where some people
are successful with FX400's (their BIOS doesn't believe what the drive
says, or their IDE ports don't even support the PIO mode the drive asks
for), but many fail (their BIOSes *do* believe, their ports *do* support
the higher speed).

=== cut here ===

Best,
Roberto

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I too run my CD-ROM off of a SoundBlaster SCSI card.  All I had to do
(before a CPU upgrade messed things up) was boot from the SCO "boot
disk" and hit enter at the first ":" prompt.  At some point
thereafter, the installation screens ask you to identify your CD-ROM
setup.  This is where I was was having problems.  Linux handles this
differently.  Whereas Linux wants the SCSI device number of your SCSI
card (mine is 7), SCO wants the SCSI device number of your CD-ROM
player (mine is 1) with the corresponding LUN number, etc.  Once I
finally figured this out, SCO was able to see my CD-ROM.

Hope this helps.

Richard Heffner
London