Apollo Workstations - Adding SCSI Disks over 1GB

Adding higher capacity SCSI drives to Apollo workstations.
last revised: 25-feb-98

When originally released, the Apollo DNxxxx series of workstations did not support the use of SCSI drives, only the ESDI type drives were supported with a maximum size of 760MB unformatted. The higher capacity drives were supported with a Western Digital controller card model WD7000. This card had both SCSI and ESDI interfaces but the O/S only supported the SCSI interface for use with cartridge tape drives, CDROM drives, and tape backup units.

When the 425t and 433s were introduced they used SCSI drives but initially in sizes of 200MB or 400MB for the 425t and 660MB for the 433s or external enclosures.

Finally, with patches to SR10.4 and SR10.4.1, use of SCSI drives are supported! This allows connections of SCSI drives up to 2GB in size to the WD7000, or 4GB on a 425t or 433s.

WD7000 Compatibility

Not all workstations will support the WD7000 controller. The DN5500's do, as do most DN4500's. The DN3500's and DN3550's are hit-n-miss, depending on the revision of motherboard and the boot PROMS installed. The following table shows the *minimum* version of motherboard and boot EPROM, higher revisions should also work.
```
   model   motherboard   boot EPROM
   -----   -----------   ---------
   DN4000  rev 25        ?
   DN3500  011858 rev 6  12191-5
   DN3500  015862 rev 1  12191-5
   DN4500  rev 5         ?
   DN5500  all           all
```
If you have recently switched from the 8621 or 8610 disk controller to the WD7000 disk controller your ESDI boot drives' badspot list may be unreadable by the WD7000 controller. The symptoms of this usually will be crashing out of INVOL while attempting options 1 or 7. To rebuild the badspot list try running the standalone FBS utility , then skip invol option 7 and use the "-f" switch on invol option 1.
If you have the right motherboard but an old EPROM, and you have access to an EPROM programmer you may be able to upgrade by downloading the EPROM image of 12191-7 and reprogramming your boot EPROM.

WD7000 Usage Notes and Restrictions

You can use one or more SCSI disks with the WD7000 interface but you can't boot from the SCSI disk. Therefore you must also have an original ESDI disk set up as a boot disk.
Not all SCSI drives and models will work, consult the table below for some success status. In general, both SCSI-I and SCSI-II drives have worked once the proper patches are installed.
Depending on the O/S revision you are running you must obtain and install certain patches in order to get SCSI disk support working. Patch pd96_m0742 is needed for SR10.4.1, and patch pd96_m0743 or pd93_m0666 is needed for SR10.3.5 Patches can be obtained from: http://us.external.hp.com:80/patches/html/patches.html
There are restrictions on the SCSI ID's supported as well as the maximum size of disk supported. For a WD7000, stick to 2.2GB drives or smaller and don't try to use SCSI ID's 0 or 1.
You must format the SCSI drive prior to mounting it with 'mtvol'. However, the standalone utilities for 'invol', 'salvol', etc, do not support operations on SCSI disks over the WD7000 controller. This means you will have to boot up your workstation and use the online version of invol or salvol.

425t & 433s Usage Notes and Restrictions

Unlike the WD7000, you can set up a 1GB or 2GB disk as a boot disk. Again, consult the table below for brands and models that have been reported as working or failing.
Don't forget the required patches!
You still can't use the SAU utilities for invol/salvol of higher capacity SCSI drives so you'll have to boot the 425t/433s off of its original disks and then invol and install the O/S and proper patches. After which, you can change jumpers on the drives and make the bigger disk use SCSI ID 6 so that it is the boot drive.
Reports are that you can use 4GB drives in a 425t or 433s, one has been reported in the table below. Avoid SCSI ID's 0-2 as this are typically used for other peripherals.

The following steps describe how to configure a SCSI disk for use with a WD7000 controller:

1. Set the SCSI ID to a non-conflicting ID between 2 and 6, connect cables, and boot up your workstation. For the remainder of this example we will use SCSI ID=3 as our example.

2. Use 'scsi_info' to determine that your workstation can see your drive and report its brand and model. Scsi_info is usualy fond under the /systest/ssr_util directory.

3. Obtain and install proper patches for the O/S you are using, then reboot.

4. Run online 'invol'

5. Select option '7', disk device is 'w3:0'. This will reformat the drive as it initializes the badspot list. For a SCSI drive you will usually have no bad spots reported. This operation can take multiple hours. Be patient. If option '7' won't work and reports an error or crashes out, then most likely the badspot list on the drive was unreadable. Try running the find badspots utility, FBS, to format the drive and reinitialize the badspot list.

6. After the badspot initialization completes you should select option '1 -f' to initialize a virgin volume. The "-f" skips the formatting as we just did that in the previous step. For verification options it is your choice. The safest choice is '3' write and re-read all blocks although this will take a large amount of time.

7. After the 'invol' choice 1 completes, exit invol and mount the disk as directory '/usr2' using mtvol:
mtvol w3:0 /usr2

A list of SCSI disk brands and models and their usage success:


status  O/S      notes brand/model
------  --------  ---  ----------------------------------
works   10.3.5         CDC 94181-15, 600 MB, SCSI-1
works   10.4.1.2       Fujitsu M2694ES 1.0 GB
works   10.4.1         Fujitsu M2694S-512 1.08 GB, SCSI-1
works   10.4.1.2   7   HP C2276S 660 MB, SCSI-1
works   10.4.1     9   HP C3325A 2.0 GB
works   10.4.0.11      HP 97560-300 1.3 GB
works   10.4.1.2   5   HP C3725S 2.14 GB, SCSI-2
works   10.4.1.2   4   HP 97549T 1 GB, SCSI-2
works   10.4.1.2   8   HP 97558-300, 1 GB  SCSI-2
works   10.4.1.2   4   IBM DPES-31080, 1 GB, SCSI-2
works   10.4.1         IBM DORS-32160, 2.0 GB
works   10.3.5         Imprimus, 1GB, SCSI-1
works   10.3.5         Maxtor PO12-S, 1 GB, SCSI-1
works   10.3.5         Quantum Lightning 730S, 730MB, SCSI-1
works   10.3.5         Quantum ProDrive 1225S 1.2 GB
works   10.4.1         Quantum Fireball 1080
works   10.4.1         Quantum Fireball 1280S 1.3 GB, SCSI-2
works   10.4.1.2       Quantum Fireball QM-32100-SE-S 2.1 GB, SCSI-2
works   10.4.1.2   5   Quantum Fireball 3200S 3.2 GB, ultra SCSI-2
works   10.4.1.2   8   Rodime R03000T, 200 MB, SCSI-1 
works   10.4.1         Seagate ST1480 SUN0424, 424 MB
works   10.4.1         Seagate ST31200N 1 GB
works   10.3.5         Seagate ST41200N 1 GB
works   10.4.1     9   Seagate ST41650N 1.3 GB
works   10.4.1.2   6   Seagate ST32550N 2 GB, SCSI-2
works   10.4.1.2   6   Seagate ST32155N 2 GB, SCSI-2
works   10.4.0.11      Seagate ST41600N 1.3 GB
works   10.4.1     9   Seagate ST51080N (Medalist SL) 1.0GB
works   10.4.1     6   Seagate ST15150N (Baracuda) 4.3GB

fails   10.4.1     6   Conner CFP2105 2.0 GB
fails   10.4.1.2   6   HP C2235 400 MB
fails   10.4.1     3   Micropolis 2112-15MQ1094802, 1.0 GB
fails   10.3.5     10  Quantum Fireball 1080 1.0 GB
fails   10.4.1.1   8   Rodime R03000T, 200 MB, SCSI-1 
fails   10.4.1     2   Seagate ST11200N
fails   ?          1   SUN 2.1 GB (Seagate Hawk)
----------------------------------------------------------
notes:
1) more info needed on O/S and environment
2) DN4500, 10.4.1, would not spin up
3) DN4500, 10.4.1, would not low level format
4) using WD7000 in DN3500 with 015652-4 motherboard, 12191-7 boot prom
5) using WD7000 in DN5500
6) using 425T
7) had to format on 425t before using on DN5500 / WD7000 combo
8) using DN5500 / WD7000
9) failed with SR10.4, needed 10.4.1
10) reported to work with 10.4.1

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