qlogic 1020 and seagate barracuda

[Peter Rye]

>>>>> "VK" == VK  <v123456 at gmx.net> writes:

    VK> Hi, I'm having trouble with Seagate Barracuda (ST150176LC) attached
    VK> to QLogic SCSI card on Alpha PWS 433. The drive is 80pin attached
    VK> trough 68-80 adapter. The cable has buit-in terminator. I do not
    VK> know the exact model of the scsi card, but it has QLogic ISP1020 on
    VK> it, 68 pin and 50 pin internal and 68 pin external scsi
    VK> connectors. It also has some weird jumpers like that:

    VK>           Term Dis High * * Low * *

    VK> I'm unable to find a manual for the card (no wonder, it's
    VK> manufactured in 93) so I'm not sure how to set them up
    VK> properly. I've played with them though and it does not seem to
    VK> matter how they set up.

    VK> SRM correctly identifies the drive, but hd dkc0 or exer dkc0
    VK> produce 'device not ready'. RH 7.2 also identifies the drive
    VK> correctly, says 'spinning up the drive' and then 'not
    VK> responding'. The drive spins up as soon as the power is on
    VK> though. I've played with SRM variables pkc0_soft_term (setting to
    VK> off,on,low,high,diff), pkc0_mode (fast or ultra) - does not seem to
    VK> matter.

    VK> Win2000 with the same card/drive (on PC though) behaves the same -
    VK> I see the drive in the Device Manager, but can't access it in any
    VK> way.

    VK> I've run out of ideas and going to pronounce the drive dead. On the
    VK> other hand it's my first SCSI drive and I might have missed
    VK> something which is obvious to all the experienced folks out
    VK> there. So I would appreciate any help/ideas.

I've seen this with a Seagate drive before.
I bought the drive from Ebay, and the vendor assured me that it was fine,
however I couldn't get it accessible from a PC, my alpha or a G3 Mac using
Linux, OpenBSD, Win95 or OSX.
It was visible to the firmware, but gave the same errors you report.

It turned out that it had come from some sort of array of drives, and it
actually reported itself as an SX150... rather than the usual ST150...,
which apparently meant it had some sort of custom firmware, rather than the
usual Seagate firmware.

I could never access the drive, nor a similar replacement drive. The vendor
kept insisting it was fine on his system.
Eventually swapped for two other Seagate drives which were fine.
I was using a LSI (Symbios) SCSI card (PC-875) on an SX164 Alpha machine.

Don't know whether it could be a similar problem, but worth a look.
Apparently some Seagate engineers are able to reflash the firmware on these
drives. If you search the web you will find some details on this procedure,
but as these services are all in the USA, and I live in Australia, I didn't
pursue it further.

Regards,
Peter Rye