News Group Posts

scsi boot disk

Newsgroups: comp.unix.sco.misc
From: bill@wjv.com (Bill Vermillion)
Subject: Re: Installation - SCO Openeserver 5.0.4 on an old PS/2 model 90 - Help
Message-ID: <G5BHrA.H6o@wjv.com> 
References: <3a3202c3$1_2@news.telinco.net>
<f2u43ts82ggdj40docbt8tf5223mdik7eg@4ax.com> 
Date: Sat, 9 Dec 2000 20:18:46 GMT

In article <f2u43ts82ggdj40docbt8tf5223mdik7eg@4ax.com>,
Jeff Liebermann  <jeffl@comix.santa-cruz.ca.us> wrote:
>On Sat, 9 Dec 2000 09:58:10 -0000, "Tony Pattison"
><tony.pattison@totalise.co.uk> wrote:

>>I'm trying to get OpenServer 5.0.4 installed on an old IBM PS/2
>>model 90 (9590) with two SCSI hard disks and a SCSI CDROM all on a
>>single internal host adapter. This venerable PC has 40 mb of RAM
>>and an XGA/2 video card.
>
>Cool. Want another one? I have one sitting in my dead computer
>pile. The box was so beautifully built, that I just couldn't see
>myself tossing it. Unfortunately, it's only a 486DX25. I also have
>a pile of MCA boards buried (somewhere).

>>I can get the diskette to boot, although I have to use a
>>"defbootstr Sdsk=hf(0,6,0) Srom(0,1,0)" to get it to correctly
>>identify the devices.
>
>I think you mean "hd" not "hf". Has someone juggled the disk
>drives? The boot SCSI drive *MUST* be drive ID=0, not 6. Move some
>jumpers around on the drive and use the reference disk to verify
>that it is correct.

Not neccesarily true Jeff.  Chaging the boot string on installation
will cause the correct drive to boot.  In a system where I could
turn off drive 0, I defined a bootstring to be 0,1,0, so that the
SCO would boot off drive 1.

IBM's SCSI controllers follow the SCSI standard which really should
have the boot drive be the next highest priority after the adapter
itself, which is 7.  The PC world adapators/OS'es all used
drive 0 because that matches the original standards of the
brain-dead PC, and PC-XT model.   If he's using an IBM SCSI adaptor
and he moved the drive IDs' he *MUST* [using your words] change the
setting in the IBM adaptor. 

I installed man SCO systems on IBM 80's and 90's. 

>This might help: http://aplawrence.com/cgi-bin/ta.pl?arg=105741
>but I still think you have to move the hd ID to zero, and possibly
>the cdrom ID to 5 (SCO's favorite defaults). If it has a tape
>drive, set it to ID=2.

Those are just the boot defaults.  Using the bootstring you can
cause SCO to boot from any drive you wish.  What will get you
is that if you don't set the bootstring, and the first HD the
controller finds is on ID1 [for example] after you install
the system won't boot because the default system expects to
load from drive 0.   Ask me how I know :-)

-- 
Bill Vermillion -   bv @ wjv . com

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