Aidan Corey writes:

 > I'm trying to use UnixFS with the old filecore and a PowerTec SCSI2
 > card on a 270MB SCSI SyQuest with no RISC OS partition.  If I run
 > !BtRiscBSD.native./dev/sd0a I get:
 > 
 > Unknown partition type
 > Bombing out...
 > 10
 > Internal error

It's a *long* time since I tried it without a filecore boot block (it
uses this for the geometry. I'll have a look into this.

 > It appears to (correctly) use 40980 as the SWI chunk base.
 > 
 > >  > bb_riscbsd
 > >  > ----------
 > >  > 
 > >  > This did not check correctly for SCSI when typing S. It always
 > >  > ended up with using ADFS. I just made a new copy of this program
 > >  > and set it to SCSI all the time.
 > 

[ Sniperty Snip ]

 > 
 > Because 540 doesn't end with "THEN", it's a single-line IF.  The
 > "ELSE" is read as "comment out this section of code silently please".

Ooohh. Well I'm not sure if this version is mine or Mark's I'll have a
look...

 > We noticed this when installing RiscBSD on a friend's machine.  His
 > IDE drive (all RISC OS) seems to be working okay despite him having
 > accidentally used bb_riscbsd to mark it as all BSD.  Are there likely
 > to be problems in the future?  (Of course, there's no backup bootblock
 > because we ran it more than once when it didn't seem to have any
 > effect on the SCSI drive...)

My version prints out what it's about to do before going ahead.

 > > Right this little proggy has only been tested on cumana and powertec
 > > cards AFAIK. These cards use SCSI_DiscOp. I'll change this. The
 > > case-sensitivity is a problem tho'.
 > 
 > My PowerTec uses SCSIFS_DiscOp.  I thought that my friend's Cumana did
 > too, but can't verify this right now.
 > 
 > We couldn't use UnixFS on his computer either.  RO3.6, Cumana SCSI2,
 > another 270MB SyQuest.  We tried both with the whole disc being used
 > for RiscBSD and with a minimal RISC OS partition.

Well since it's only a little problem, and since bb_riscbsd is
generally only run once per disk then I think most people would be
able to fix it until a new version is released. The way things are
going with bb_riscbsd I think it's going to need to be CVSed.

 > On the subject of PowerTec cards: I think you (Scott) said recently
 > that the current RiscBSD driver always disables on-card termination.
 > You certainly know more about the subject than I do, but... I thought
 > that writing a 0 to the appropriate location on the card *enabled*
 > termination (i.e. the opposite of the *Configure SCSIFSTerminators
 > semantics), and that that's what the current driver's source (which I
 > can't check right now... HD failure... blah blah blah...) does.  Can
 > you just confirm that I'm completely wrong about this (which I
 > probably am)?

Nope. I can't confirm this (atm), I was given the address but not the
activity level, I assume I just guessed. I have internal and external
devices at home and have no problems. Since people seem to have
problems on configurations that have only internal or external devices
and these problems go away when a temrinator is added, it would see to
suggest that 0 if off and 1 is on. Time to reverse engineer a module
or 2 I think ;-), or maybe I'll just mail the author...

 > 
 > -- 
 > Aidan

Cheers Scott

-- 
Scott Stevens, Network Services Group, Computer Centre, Imperial College
Rachel: "So basically you get your ya-yas by taking money from all of
your friends."  Ross: "...Yeah."  Chandler: "Yes, and I get my ya-yas
from Ikea. You have to put 'em together yourself, but they cost a little
less."                                                          - Friends