hardware fault on SGI Indigo? - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

4 Dec 2004

On Nov 24 2004, 17:30, Fabian H?nsel wrote:

...
  I have an old SGI Indigo (IP12) which refuses my
attempts to populate
 the harddisk with Irix 5.3. The harddisk doesn't boot, so I assume it to
...
  be empty.

 I get sashIP12 and fx.IP12 to load from cd, but using fx with that hd fails:
...

    SGI Version 5.3   IP12   Oct 31, 1994
    fx: "device-name"= (dksc)
    fx: ctrl#= (0)
    fx: drive#= (1)
    ... opening dksc(0,1,)
    dks0d1s10: Drive not ready: RAM failure, ASQ=0x80.
    fx: warning: Failed to open dksc(0,1,10)
    SGI Version 5.3   IP12   Oct 31, 1994

    (and the same again, if I want)

 Is it trying to open a non-existent partition dks0d1s10? Is it a
 software-fault? If it's a hardware fault: What's broken: hd or ram? 
That looks like a faulty drive.  Does it spin up?  fx is trying to read
the status from the drive, and getting a message to say that the drive
has an error and is "not ready".  "Not ready" means either not
spinning, or not able to initialise itself for some other reason, like
a fault in the drive's own RAM).  If it were just because the drive
isn't set for auto-spinup, fx would issue a spinup command, so it would
seem in this case there is some other drive problem.

dks0d1s10 is the first disk (dk) unit (d1), on the first SCSI
controller (s0), partition 10.  Partition 10 is "the whole of the
disk".  Once the disk has an SGI label structure written to it, things
will be able to find the volume header, but initially fx just accesses
"the whole disk", ie ignoring any partition table (since such things
are OS-dependant).

...
  The hd is in the bottom drive bay. After my enter
keystroke in line 4
 (drive#=1) the led flashes for a short time and at the same time (or
 maybe some millisecconds later) the error message appears. 
As you probably know, the SCSI ID is automatically determined by the
bay you put the drive in.  At least, it is if you use standard sleds,
which have a connection from the ID pins on the drive, via the sled
connector, to the backplane.  A few (genuine SGI) sleds have a selector
switch instead.  The flash from the LED is the drive responding to the
command sent by fx to read the status from the drive, so the chances
are that the drive is being correctly addressed.  If its address was
mis-jumpered, which can happen if you didn't connect the drive ID
jumpers to the sled, it either wouldn't respond, or would respond to
address 0 (which is the Indigo's SCSI controller's address) which would
cause different problems.

-- 
Pete						Peter Turnbull
						Network Manager
						University of York