On Fri, 20 Feb 1998, Balazs Barany wrote:

> Hello,
>=20
> there is an annoying problem with NetBSD 1.3 on my Mac IIsi with a Quantu=
m
> hard disk, 17 MB of RAM, Asant=E9 ethernet card. I have no external SCSI =
devices.
 [snip]
> One hour before I had a clean file system. Then I copied some MBs from my=
=20
> Windows95 PC to the mac's drive and deleted a large directory with many f=
iles.=20
> It couldn't be entirely deleted because of a "access denied" error so=20
> I fsck'd immediately.
>=20
> The following error messages were displayed (up to 40 times, of course)

[fsck vomit]

> One fsck wasn't enough, I needed it two times. Also, quite often fsck
> complains about bad disk sectors (different ones each time) and even
> if I don't correct them they don't come again.=20
>=20
> My /etc/fstab reads:
> /dev/sd0a=09/=09ffs=09rw=091=091
> /dev/sd0b=09none=09swap=09sw=090=090
> kern=09=09/kern=09kernfs=09rw=090=090
> proc=09=09/proc=09procfs=09rw=090=090
>=20
> There is only one partition and the file system type is ffs, as described=
 in the=20
> "upgrading to 1.3 how-to".
> Of course, I tried the SBC kernel but on my machine it boots right into=
=20
> the debugger.
>=20
> As far as I know should a program that uses the kernel's documented file =
accessing
> functions (as samba surely does) not be able to trash the file system, so=
 this seems
> to be a kernel and/or hardware problem.

You don't say what size hard disk. I think this really is a job for the
SBC kernel. If it drops you into the booter, tell us how/where so we
can try to fix it. :-)

> What should I do? Would a terminator on the SCSI port help?

It shouldn't be needed (assuming this is the factory drive and thus came
terminated). One nanosecond (1 GHz) is about 8 inches (20 cm) in cable, so
the cable in the computer should be fine w/ one terminator as long as
everything's under 100 MHz or so (which it certainly is). But then again,
a terminator won't hurt.

If the drive is a replacement, if it's not terminated, much sickness can
happen.

> If this problem can't be solved I will have to take a PC with Linux that =
really works.

Given Apple's lack of documentation of the Mac, we're having troubles with
the SCSI drivers. Debugging help is appreciated. Also, if you choose to
drop the IIsi, you can run NetBSD on the PC also. The advantage'd be that
you wouldn't have to learn a different setup. :-)

Oh, for the record, I have a IIsi, use the ncrscsi driver, and everything
seems fine. These problems just seem to hit randomly.

Take care,

Bill