2 Feb 1992

Have a SCSI device?  Want a SCSI device? Read on - I might be able to save
you a lot of grief.

First, let me introduce myself. My name is Jim Hare, and I've been working
with PC's and mainframe computers for a little over 13 years. I know my way
around a CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT, and try to keep up with the latest
technology . I work as a user support consultant at southern New Jersey's
electric utility, and teach various DOS and programming classes at the local
Community College. I also do some consulting on the side, in my copious spare
time. So I'm not exactly a PC neophyte.

I have a clone 386/25 purchased mail order in August of 1989, and for the
most part it has performed yeoman duty. It uses AMI BIOS, a ATI VGA Wonder
VGA video card driving a NEC 3-D monitor, and I have 8 megabytes of RAM
installed. I've always been a bit of a tweaker, so I've experimented and
used everything from QEMM and DesqView to Windows, the disk cache SUPER
PC-KWIK, UltraVision, 4DOS, etc etc etc.

Around Labor Day of last year, I purchased (at a computer flea market/fair)
an additional Maxtor 7120S 120 megabyte hard drive to go along with the
Maxtor LXT100S 90m drive that came with the system. I'd heard and read that
it wasn't good to mix and match SCSI drives, due to compatibility problems,
so I purposely looked for a Maxtor drive. I also purchased version 5.0 of
DR-DOS, good deal, just $39.99. Both packages were still in shrink wrap,
new, so far as I could tell.

My original drive was hooked to a DTK 8-bit SCSI bus master card in the PC.
I knew about setting SCSI id's and such, but there was no documentation
with the new drive ( first mistake - always ask for or get documentation
with SCSI devices!). I hooked it up, and actually, it worked. Luckily, it
did not have the same ID as the original 90 megger. It had been formatted
at the factory as one large 120+ meg partition, but I never liked putting
all my eggs in one FAT basket, so I repartitioned it into 32-meg partitions
and a 25meg leftover. Interestingly, the FDISK program made some strange
assignments:

        C: drive   - new disk first partition, 32m
        D: drive   - old disk, first partition (the original C: drive), 32m
        E:         - new disk, second partition, 32m
        F:         - new disk, third partition, 32m
        G:         - new disk, fourth partition, 25m
        H:         - old disk, second partition (original D:), 32m
        I:         - old disk, third partition (original E:), 26m

The D: drive (old C: on the 90) still had the DOS boot record on it, so
every new partition I made on the new drive bumped the drive letters back
one letter on the old drive. No big deal, though.

After a while, I got it all working, and everything seemed fine. Then I
installed DR-DOS 5/0.  After a few tweaks, I got it to work fairly well,
though I noticed a slowdown in overall system performance as reported by
Norton, Landmark, etc. Nothing major, but unexpected. My old numbers from
Norton SI ver 4.5 : 29.4, Landmark 33.5 (I have a 64k memory cache that
seems to make the 25mHz cpu time out as a 33mHz chip. Under the new DOS,
Norton reported around 27 point something, and Landmark around 29
something. Again, nothing major. I could have lived with it. But it didn't
like 4DOS, for some reason, so very reluctantly, I put 4DOS aside.

(Note : Understand new version 4.0 of 4DOS works just find with DR-DOS)

Because I purchased 5.0  of DR-DOS just before the company released their
version 6.0,  I was eligible for a free upgrade, just pay the $9.95
shipping costs. Who could resist? This new DOS was the darling of all the
trade press, magazines, etc. Plus, I've always like to support the
underdog.

When it arrived, I read all the installation instructions, made backups of
all my important files (CONFIG, AUTOEXEC, etc) and began the install. Well,
now it gets interesting. The install did some strange stuff to my FATs.
Trashed 4 or 5 of them, actually. This DR-DOS 6.0 has a feature not unlike
Norton's Format Recover whereby it saves copies of your FATS and such. But
somehow there was an incompatibility between DR-DOS and the SuperPC Kwik
cache, a very highly rated and recommended product that had performed
perfectly well for two years. I could find no way in the installation
routines to keep the install program from doing this, so I decided the heck
with it, removed version 6.0, and re-installed the same company's version
5.0, which had been fine, actually.

(Let me take a moment right here to talk about a rampant problem with us PC
nuts - we're never satisfied, now matter how well we're doing. We're always
ready to be seduced by the next claim for more or faster or better. I had
managed to experiment/tweak/force my system into performing perfectly well,
but just HAD to have more, you know? I had a 3 meg disk cache, a screen
speeder-upper, a video enhancer, a keyboard speeder-upper, a mouse, my
FILES and BUFFERS, and who know what else, all loaded into high memory, and
had 638K at my C: prompt. But was that enough? Nooooooooo, I just had to
get more..

Lesson : If you can get anywere above 600K available when you get to the C:
prompt in a 386, leave it at that. The incremental increase is not worth
the grief, believe me.

Back to story - so I got DR-DOS 5.0 reinstalled, but about a day or so
later, one of the partitions on the old 90meg drive locked up. I lost the
whole drive. I got a dread 1701 error : "Controller ROM BIOS failure".
Hmmmm. The 120 drive seemed fine. I opened up the case. Switched cables.
Nothing. Seated and re-seated the DTK SCSI controller. Sprayed cleaner on
the contacts and in the slot. Nothing. Removed the drive, cleaned the cable
connectors. Nothing. Switched power connectors. Nothing. No 90 Meg drive.
Time to call for a new card, I guess.

Now, I should say that Maxtor seems to have a very good phone-mail system
for getting tech sheets, settings and jumper information and such. But in
about 5 calls to various lines, I've yet to speak to a live human. They
could all be recordings, for all I know. They even have an automated fax
tech-sheet ordering system. So I ordered the set-up sheets on the two
drives, just to see what I might find. It turns out that I got the new
drive to work purely by accident - the documentation said that the drives
are always set at the factory to SCSI id 6 - that being highest priority
next to the ID 7 of the bus mastering card itself. The old 90meg was indeed
ID 6, but the new drive had been set at ID 0. So it was purely an accident
that they both worked at all!

So I tried changing jumpers, setting different SCSI id's, all that stuff.
Nothing. That 90meg drive just refused to come alive. I know it was getting
power, because I could hear it spin!

So, break out the old Computer Shopper, and call one of their favorite hard
drive vendors - Hard Drives International - you know, the one with all the
pages and pages of ad's? So I get this new, highly recommened Adaptec 1542B
SCSI card by FedEx a few days later, and try to get it going. NADA! Call to
tech support - Guy says I have to low-level format the drive. Great, I
think.	There's no information with the card as to what debug commands to
use to get the L/L format going. Support gives me commands to start
low-level format on this card. I go home, and try. Nothing. No soap. Call
tech support again.

Them : "Hmmm. Sounds like the card might just be incompatible with your
setup."

Me : "But you sell these cards all the time, even bundled in with the exact
same drive I'm using! That doesn't make sense."

Them : "Send card back ,we'll send you our second choice."

Me : "Do you sell Allways IN-2000 or new Ultrastor 14-f? Heard good things
about them on Interlink..."

Them : No. We'll send you our next best card, actually costs more, but
we'll make an even trade."

Me : "Ok, thanks, send it right out, I'm really stuck here. No PC at all.

Them : "Will do."

They did. Got 2nd card. Nearly ten days later. The new card sat on the
shipping dock and someone kept forgetting to throw it on back of truck.
Never heard of manufacturer, Procom Technology, but they seemed to have
better documentation. 3-ring binder and all. Instructions on how to L/L
format. Did that. Glad I had that full backup! Booted up, found 120, but
card couldn't find 90meg drive. Poop.

Now I'm really getting forlorn. In desperation, now that 120meg has been
completely cleaned off, and after realizing that all these problems seemed
to come about just after I stuck DR-DOS 5/6 on machine, install PC-DOS 5.0
from IBM, give new copy of DR-DOS 6.0 to friend of my wife from college,
stick DR-DOS 5.0 box in attic next to Microsoft 4.01. No better. Still no
90 meg drive. But, at least the 120 is back, so I reload from backup
diskettes (38 1.2m diskettes!) and reload all application software and
other stuff. Decide it's time for a tape drive. Find good deal on 250meg
internal drive at local computer flea market/fair. Take home. Install.

Rats - As usual, directions with drive assume that no one has a two floppy
drives with their system, they say hook up to cable that would go to my B:
drive. Heck, I already have a cable going to my B: drive! But, I now have a
spare floppy controller, since my new card has hard and floppy hook ups.
Attach spare cable to floppy controller, re-install old floppy controller
back in system. Fooey! That doesn't work either. Both floppys make all
kinds of terrible noises on powerup. Not sure why, but don't have time to
screw with it. Remove old floppy controller,unhook B: drive,hook up tape
drive to existing controller, manage to get tape drive going,  re-boot,
re-run setup, no, I don't have a B: floppy drive anymore, run tape backup
software, find out have to format tape first.

You think formatting a 1.4 meg floppy takes a long time? Try formatting a
DC 2120 tape cartridge! Two hours at 25mHz. Finally done, run complete
backup, works like a charm. Disconnect tape drive, re-connect B: drive,
re-run setup, Yes, I have a B: floppy drive.

Everything fine for a few days, of course still no 90meg drive, but I'm
learning to live with that, I figure drive just died, no two ways about it.
These things happen. It was 2+ years old. Warranty ran out last September.
Then no 120m drive either! System locks up halfway through boot process,
during step where the Procom SCSI BIOS loads and gets disk ID. Another
round of cable and power cord switching, cleaning, checking, etc. No good.

Ok, I'm at the end of my rope, and I just don't have the time to muck with
it anymore. Take system to local PC repair place, guy seems to know what
he's doing. Explain problem. Tell him I still suspect SCSI card, could he
check it, and if needed, replace with Allways or UltraStor, both of which
I'd heard are very good. And, oh, by the way, could you hook up the tape
drive, here's the address of the manufacturer, it says here they sell a
dedicated controller card for it, also please attach Y-cable power
connector, so I can run 2 HD, 2 FD, and tape drive, since my power supply
only has 4 power leads coming out of it. Hang the expense, I just want it
to work again!

Week later, no word from repair store. I call him.
Him : "Yep, you were right. It locks up during boot process. But I don't have
any SCSI cards here to check it with. You might as well come by and pick it up. I
can't do anything for you.

Me : Gee, thanks. (I did get a power connector Y-cable from him, though, so
I could finally hook up tape drive without disconnecting the B: diskette
drive. But what good is it without hard drive! Ha ha ha ha , I'm starting
to get goofy now.)

Call Hard Drives International again. They say card should be fine, they
sell it all the time. Just can't understand.

Hang up, lean back in chair. Ok, just a minute here. Sit back. Cleanse the
mind. THINK about this!.... Hmm. SCSI.....BIOS....Controller
card....hmmmmm.....Wait a minute. SCSI - no real standard yet. Moving
target. Frequent incompatibilities. Let's see. What's the probablility that
the BIOS on the CARD, the BIOS on the DISK, and the BIOS on the MOTHERBOARD
are all still in sync?	Right, slim and NONE! The card BIOS and the Disk
BIOS should be fairly even, they're only a few months old. BUT, the
motherboard has an AMI BIOS from February of 1989! Eons ago! Could it be
simply that the AMI BIOS isn't up to speed with any of the SCSI commands
that the card or disk are using? Could that be IT?

Call Upgrades, Etc. from Computer Shopper. Tell tech guy my tale of woe.
Yep, he says, that could be it. Order new chips. They arrive. Take home
gingerly. Open case. Remove all cards. Ground self, repeatedly. Pry out old
chips. Spray cleaner into chip holders. Install new chips. Re-install
cards. Reconnect all drives. (except tape drive. Has power, but no ribbon
cable yet.)

Cross fingers. Turn power on. No sparks. System boot up seems ok.

"Run setup?"   You betcha.

Tell new BIOS about my floppies.  Reboot.

AHA! Success! Procom SCSI BIOS loads right up, ID's disk, loads CONFIG.SYS,
runs AUTOEXEC.BAT, it's as if nothing ever happened.  120 meg drive is back,
no problems. It was that old motherboard BIOS!

Next day, buy floppy adaptor cable at Egghead that will allow me to run two
floppies and tape drive, install, WOW! even tape drive works now. Do
another full backup to test it. Everything A-OK!

Also upgraded to newest version of Super PC-Kwik disk cache. This release
seems a little less friendly to the new controller. Have to run in generic
mode, no staged writes. No big deal. But, have to load track buffer in
conventional memory. Takes up 19K. Rats. Down to 610K with Ultravision, Ram
Disk, Screen Accelerator, QEMM 6.02, Keyboard enhancer, Mouse, FILES,
BUFFERS and DOS all loaded high.  Some guys are never satisfied......

Just one more thing to check. Right, the old Maxtor 90 megger. Hook up.
Nothing. Still dead. Procomm SCSI preparation program tries valiantly to
get it to respond, but still no go.

Question now is, it is worth it to get repaired? Maxtor wants $225 to fix
(as per their robot phone lines), but I can get another 7120S that's faster
than this old 90, for just $370. Probably not worth it to repair. Unless I
send drive somewhere else for evaluation for 15 bucks or so. Just my luck
it'd be something stupid like a fuse!

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
			    MORAL OF THE STORY :
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

1) NO complaints about Maxtor or Hard Drives. Everything they said was
   true, although I'm kinda suprised that HDI, being experts, didn't suggest a
   BIOS upgrade upfront.

2) Not so sure about DR DOS. If you feel tempted, make sure you have a
   COMPLETE BACKUP!

3) With SCSI devices, BIOS revisions are very important - if you try to
   attach new SCSI devices to your system, you may need to upgrade the base
   motherboard BIOS. I believe that had I done this in the first place, the
   Adaptec board probably would have worked. This kind of BIOS problem will
   become more of an issue as we start to add CD-ROMS, sound boards, etc.
   The promise of SCSI is good - multiple devices, one card,
   daisy-chaining, and all that. But, there is a general lack of good
   information about them - I went all over the local bookstores, read all
   the chapters on SCSI in Dvorak's book, Norton's book(s), and all the
   other PC repairing/upgrading texts. Not any one of them suggested or even
   mentioned BIOS problems when upgrading SCSI devices.


I'm not really sure what caused all the problems in the first place, or if
it was just a combination of all sorts of things. But we're back in
business now. Luckily, I didn't loose much more than time. If you run a
business on a PC, you could be much more at risk.

I'd be happy to discuss this 'adventure' with you if you'd like any more
gory details, if you think I can spare you some grief. Drop me a line on
Compuserve 71360,640 - I check there about 1-3 times per week.

James M. Hare
Feb 3, 1992
1:28 AM.






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