From: ccas20@vaxa.strath.ac.uk
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
Subject: SONY MO WOES
Date: 8 Apr 92 11:47:35 GMT
Organization: Strathclyde University VAX Cluster

I despair of ever getting this device to work. Postings to
comp.sys.sgi suggest that SONY mag/optical drives do bolt onto
the average iris but this one certainly doesnt.

I have tried it under 3.3, 4.0 and 4.0.1 and while the behaviour of
fx is different neither seem to handle the device. In 4.0 fx
recognises the drive and allows a user to change the device
geometry, in 4.0.1 it complains that it can't get the geometry
and assumes default values. The default geometry assumes 120
data bytes/sector, but I would expect this to be 512
bytes/sector to match the media, however fx will not allow
geometry values to be changed. It does say sorry but this is
not much consolation! Appended below is a sample session:

--------------------------------------------------------------

fx version 4.0 , Nov 15, 1991
fx: "device-name" = (dksc) 
fx: ctlr# = (0) 
fx: drive# = (1) 3
...opening dksc(0,3,)
...controller test...OK
fx: warning - invalid label on disk, ignored
Can't get drive geometry, assuming 64 sectors/track
Can't get drive geometry, assuming 8 heads
Unable to get device geometry, assuming default
Scsi drive type == SONY    SMO-C501-00     2.13
warning: can't read sgilabel on disk
creating new sgilabel
...creating default bootinfo
...creating default partitions
Can't get drive geometry, assuming 64 sectors/track
Can't get drive geometry, assuming 8 heads
Unable to get device geometry, assuming default
...creating default volume directory

fx/label/show> a

----- current drive parameters-----
Error correction enabled          Enable data transfer on error
Don't report recovered errors     Do delay for error recovery
Don't transfer bad blocks         No auto bad block reallocation (write)
No auto bad block reallocation (read)
Read buffer ratio   128/256       Write buffer ratio 128/256
Error retry attempts  2
Can't get drive geometry, assuming 64 sectors/track
Can't get drive geometry, assuming 8 heads
----- current drive geometry-----
   Tracks/zone =    1  Sect/track =   64
 Alt sect/zone =    0  Interleave =    1  Cylinders = 1126
 Alt track/volume = 0  Cylinder skew = 0  Heads = 8
   Alt track/zone = 0     Track skew = 0   Data bytes/sec = 120
----- partitions-----
part  type       cyls             blocks          Megabytes
(base+size)
  0: efs        6 + 64         3072 + 32768         1 + 16   
  1: rawdata   70 + 160       35840 + 81920        17 + 40   
  6: efs      230 + 896      117760 + 458752       57 + 224  
  7: efs        6 + 1120       3072 + 573440        1 + 280  
  8: volhdr     0 + 6             0 + 3072          0 + 1    
 10: entire     0 + 1126          0 + 576512        0 + 281  
----- bootinfo-----
 root partition = 0     swap partition = 1    bootfile = /unix
----- directory entries-----
fx/label/show/all: warning - no sgilabel on disk
----- sgi-info-----
   serial = 0000  name = SONY    SMO-C501-00 2.13

fx/label/set> g

Warning: you will need to reformat the disk after changing
the drive geometry.  This will cause all data on the drive
to be lost.  Continue? yes
Can't get any geometry info, sorry

----------------------------------------------------------------

So, either I am missing the point or this thing is just
obstinate! All attempts to heuristicly stumble on a working
set of parameters have failed. The device will format the
media, pass all read only diagnostics but refuse to write any
data. On attempting to write back the label the following
errors are logged:

dks0d3s10: Illegal request: Illegal field in CDB,.
dks0d3s10: Illegal request: Invalid field in parameter list,.
sc0,3,0: cmd=0x2A Unexpected info phase 46, state 48.  
Resetting SCSI bus
dks0d3s10: SCSI driver error 2
dks0d3s10: SCSI driver error 1
sc0,3,0: cmd=0x28 Unexpected info phase 50, state 4B

Hopefully, this may mean something to somebody. Dave Olsen 
suggested a cabling or termination problem but I am using a
SGI SCSI cable (from the cd-rom drive) and have tried
positioning the drive both at the end of the SCSI chain and in
the middle. If there was a termination problem would it not
affect all the SCSI devices? Anyway, no matter what I try
nothing seems to make any difference.

Any help/advice would be most welcome. If all attempts fail
the supplier says he will exchange it IF I can tell him the
exact make and model no of a device that will work. So if you
are using a MO drive I should be most obliged if you could
mail me details.

Once again many thanks for any/all help.

		Regards,
			Mike