From: bash@tware.com (Paul Bash)
Subject: 1542B with NEC CDR-74 and MSDOS doesn't work: help!
Organization: Techware Design, Boulder, Colorado
Date: Sun, 13 Dec 1992 19:12:35 GMT


Well, I've read back through all the posts in comp.periphs.scsi for the 
last two weeks and haven't seen any answers to this. If its in a FAQ 
somwhere, please point me to it.

On Friday, I received my brand new Adaptec 1542B and NEC CDR-74 CD-ROM
player. I've since spent the last two days trying everything I could 
think of to make this combination work under both MSDOS 5.0 (using the 
Adaptec EZ-SCSI driver package supplied with the SCSI adapter) and 
OS/2 2.0 (using the latest beta os2cdrom.zip package found at 
ftp-os2.nmsu.edu) and have gotten the same results consistently: any 
attempt to read data from the drive results in the CD-ROM player busy 
light coming on for exactly 30 seconds followed by the message, 

  "drive d: not ready"

(or something to that effect), being displayed. I've tried this with
two seperate CD-ROMs so I feel comfortable that the problem isn't a 
bad disk.

To simplify things, I'll just describe my MSDOS setup. My hardware is 
configured like the following:

1) 486-33 Ace Cache (a garage shop clone motherboard that has been 
   running OS/2 and Unix with an Adaptec 1542B for the last year 
   and a half). Bus speed is set at 8.33Mhz.  

2) Adaptec 1542B with all jumpers set at factory defaults.

3) STB PowerGraph VGA with 8bit bios enabled and IRQ 2 disabled. 

4) Western Digital Piranha 4200 SCSI-2 harddrive (target 0). 

5) NEC CDR-74 CD-ROM (target 1).

6) Archive 2150s SCSI tape (target 2).


The 1542B has the terminator resistors removed and, at each end of
the SCSI bus, the 2150S and the CDR-74 are terminated. The Piranha
is unterminated 

My config.sys looks like this:

   DEVICE=C:\ADAPTEC\ASPI4DOS.SYS /D
   shell=c:\dos\command.com /e:1024 /p
   FILES=50
   buffers=31
   BREAK=ON
   DEVICE=C:\ADAPTEC\ASPICD.SYS /D:ASPICD0

And my autoexec.bat has the following line at the end:

   C:\ADAPTEC\MSCDEX.EXE /D:ASPICD0 /M:12

Except for ced, a command line editor, and ansi, an ansi.sys replacement, 
there are no other TSR's installed as I've only installed DOS to try and
debug this problem. 

On boot up, I get the following messages on the screen:

>AHA-1540/1542/1640 ASPI Manager for DOS
>Version 3.1
>Copyright 1992 Adaptec, Inc.
>
>   Host Adapter #:         0    Host Adapter SCSI ID:    7
>   I/O Port Address:       330  DMA Channel:             5
>   Interrupt Level:        11   VDS Support Level:       MultiSegRW
>
>   Host Adapter #0 - SCSI ID 0 - LUN 0:   WDIGTL SP4200   1 4.02
>   Host Adapter #0 - SCSI ID 1 - LUN 0:   NEC    CD-ROM DRIVE:84 1.0
>   Host Adapter #0 - SCSI ID 2 - LUN 0:   ARCHIVE VIPER 150 21247 -005
> 
>Int 13H routed through ASPI manager.
>ASPI4DOS.SYS Installation Successful 
>
>
>ASPI CD-ROM Driver for DOS
>Version 2.2
>Copyright 1992 Adaptec, Inc.
> 
>   Host Adapter 0, Target SCSI ID=1: NEC   CD-ROM Drive:84 1.0
>
>CD-ROM driver installeed: 1 host adapter(s), 1 target(s)
>MSCDEX Version 2.21
>Copyright (C) Microsoft Corp. [etc]
>
>   Drive D: = Driver ASPICD0 unit 0
>

Now if I attempt to issue a DIR D: command, the disk activity light on    
the front of the PC and the busy light on the front of the CDR-74 come
on solid for exactly 30 seconds, then the following message is issued
to the screen:

>CDR101: Not ready reading drive D
>Abort, Retry, Fail?

_But_, if I run the Adaptec supplied cdplayer application, I can
successfully play music CD's! 

I've tried the following things to see if they would help with
no luck:

   1) disabled parity on both the CDR-74 and the 1542B.
   2) tried different I/O port addresses and IRQ addresses
      (the machine refuses to boot unless I/O port = 330 and hangs
      during init if IRQ was set to 9)
   3) removed the terminator from the CDR-74.
   4) Changed 1542B DMA channel to other than 5.
   5) Enabled 16bit bios on the VGA card (a stab in the dark)
   5) Sacrificed a chicken (OK, it was already dead. I just cooked it)

If I've overlooked anything that is documented, please don't tell me
to RTFM. Adaptec conveniently sent me two copies of the ASW-1400 User's
manual with the adapter and none of the ASW-EZSCSI manual so I have no 
driver documentation for the MSDOS stuff. I've just hoped that the install
procedure set things up correctly.

Thanks for any and all help given. This has really got me frustrated!
 

 


-- 
Paul Bash                                                   Techware Design 
bash@tware.com                                              Boulder, CO  U.S.A.
Newsgroups: comp.periphs.scsi