Derek895

Is it possible to connect two different speed drives on the one cable? I have a 10K and a 15K SCSI drive and want to use both if possible. The 10K is a DDYS-T18350 (IBM I think) and the 15K is a Seagate Cheetah ST318453LW. I use an Adaptec 29160 Host adapter. Will one slow down the other?

Derek

linderman

DereK:

Finally see a question about my first love of hard drives SCSI

the adaptec controller is a Ultra 160 LVD (low voltage differential controller)
which means its capable of some really decent speeds / it the two drives you have are both LVD capable then / no one drive wont slow the other down / you can verify this very easily by booting up your computer and watch when the scsi adapter scans for scsi devices and id's them along with their corresponding data transfer rate / the U160 capable drive will list as 160 (mbs / per sec) and the other drive if its not a U160 drive but still a LVD capable drive will list as an 80 MBs / if one of your drives connected on the LVD cable is not up to the LVD spec / then it will show as a 40 mbs and / if you connect the non LVD capable drive to the LVD cable then all drives will travel at the rate of the slowest drive. (probally 40mbs if you have a non lvd drive)

dont forget / if the cable you are using to connect the drives to the scsi adapter is not an LVD cable / you will not get any faster perfromance than 40mbs TOPS

also you must pay attention to the termination / the small block shaped thing at the end of the LVD cable (the scsi adapter does not have its own termination) the drives must be connected starting at the terminator and adding drives in the direction towards the controller. The drive closest to the terminator is usually your boot drive (does not have to be but many scsi guru's say its faster in that config)


hope i didnt give you a bunch of info you didnt need / but there is the scoop

dont forget to go tot he windows update after you install your components and get the latest driver files / it will be listed in the "driver" section under the avaialbe security patches .



regards:

Derek895

Thanks Linderman for your helpful reply. I had been connecting the drives the other way round, so thanks for mentioning that.

Both drives are showing up as 160


However I am having trouble partitioning the second one (ie. not the boot drive). I use FDISK from an old Window 98 startup disk and set up a PRIMARY DOS partition on drive 2 but when I restart the computer and run FDISK again the partition is not there . Both drives appear in device manager on Windows and I can even run a benchmark on the second drive, but it doesn't appear under My Computer.

Any Ideas,

Derek

linderman

Did you set the jumper ID pins on the drives ?????? also there are write protect pins on the drive / make sure they are not jumpered for enabled

scsi drives are usually set from the factory to ID 0 you can have two drives with the same ID on the scsi chain and have them work properly


also / go into the scsi bios ? you will see a CTRL A you must pres the control key on the keyboard at the same time as the A key to enter then go into scsi devices / thats where you set things like scsi boot order / and a bunch of other info its not that bad / you most of the way there now / i use fdisk all the time on my scsi drives / you may want to do a low level format or verify media to do a disk diagnostics check on it from within the scsi utility bios

the low level format however will destroy any data on the disk the verify will not


regards;

Derek895

I have a jumper on the second drive set to ID 1, however I am using an adapter for 80 - 68 pin and there are jumpers for setting the ID on it too and I don't have any more jumpers to put on it. Do I need to set the ID on both?

I can't see any write protect on it.

Formated and verified the drive a while back and it checked out OK.

One other thing, in the BIOS, should I enable write-back cache (its set to N/C by default)?

linderman

later on I will reboot and check my write back cache setting


no dont set jumper pins on the converter adapter

how are the drives acting / can you go into my computer / see them and use them ?????


regards;

joe

Derek895

No the second one doesn't appear in My Computer - I have had the other drive up and running for a few weeks by itself. They do appear in device manager though, and the LED on the drive blinks.

linderman

Derek:

is there data on the drive in ??????

I would right click on my computer / click manage / click disk management

does the drive show up in there ? if so check the properties of it ????

have you tried the verify media in the scsi utilities (ctrl A ) at scsi device boot time ????

what is your boot order in the scsi controller bios / is it set to boot from the correct drive ????


regards:

linderman

Derek:


yes the default setting for wite back cache is set to *N/C

mine is set there and I am running five devices off the scsi adapter / so this is of no benefit

check in the "advanced option though"
to be sure the "reset scsi bus" is set to Enabled

and also that INT 13 Extensions are set to enabled

Derek895

OK, Heres what I've got:

The 15K drive is working fine, I have been using it for Windows XP for a few weeks.

The 10K drive is showing up in Disk Management. I converted it to dynamic (should I have?) and it shows up as DISK 1 with 16.95GB unallocated. Should I try to partition it again with FDISK (as Prim. DOS or Extended DOS?)

All the other settings you mentioned in the BIOS are OK.

Derek

linderman

Derek:

depends on your intentions / I personally am not a big "dynamic" disk fan, because it causes incompatibilities with some disk utilities and cloning programs / by the time you remeber that its a dynamic formatted disk you will be bald from pulling your hair out.

Sounds to me like the only problem you were having is just a need to be partitioned and format the drive for windows use ???? please correct me if I am wrong.

Personally I would use the Win98SE boot disk (www.bootdisk.com) on a floppy disk / and partition from there / its easy and rather powerful without getting too deep into the mud

I am unsure if you have experience with Fdisk or not but its damn simple / it I can do it / it better be simple

**** make sure you unplug the molex power conenctor from your good boot drive before the fdisk process / i have learned that the hard way - wiped clean my boot drive once !!!!!

put the bootdisk in the floppy drive and reboot the computer / when the screen gives the A: prompt

type Fdisk after the A:

it will ask you if you want to eanble large drive support / click yes

go into the delete partitions AND delete logical drives/ also delete extended partions and delete until you can select option #4 / display partition summary

it should say no partitions found / no logical drives found

then go into option #1 create primary partition {it will ask you for a size ???? if you want partitions just enter the % of the drive size you want in your first partition {this is easier than inputting MB sizes I like the % easier no math clacs to do)
(dont worry about the drive letter it assisngs in Fdisk - it will be "C" but when you reboot with your other scsi drive powered up it will move the drive letters of the empty drive automatically for you when you try to use it later on

you will need to choose the "create extended DOS partitions if you want to have multiple drive partions on this drive

a logical drive (there are options to make those too) is an "imaginable kinda" drive

logical drives is how you get the / c, d, e , f, etc {the extended partions is how the Fdisk program knows where to put the "book mark" to end that chapter

A physical drive is the actual hard drive you can place "in your hand" the logical drive is just kinda like a pretend one another words you cant physically touch the d,e,f etc like you could if you only had one big "C" drive partition

pay attention to the "set active" in the window a drive partition must have active status to boot from it /

once you are all done with the Fdisk / just boot the computer with both drives powered / then go into my computer / when you click on the new drive in there / it will give you a prompt that windows can not use an unformatted disk / do you want to format now / just choose yes / and it will be ready for use under windows / if you make more than one drive or partition you will have to repeat this step for each logical drive you made.

hope this helps

its no where near as hard as I just made it sound / its worth the effort just to learn this / you will find the info priceless

Joe

Derek895

Tried to partition again, this time with the drive on the cable by itself. Same story - when I reboot - no partition. The only thing that is jumpered is the ID, and the drive is operating in LVD mode. If there is a write protect on it I am not sure where it is.

I found this which gives some info on the drive:

http://www.hitachigst.com/tech/techl...ltrastar_36LZX

Derek

Derek895

Hi Joe,

The setup I want is:

One drive for Windows / apps

The other for data

As I mentioned earlier the 15K drive is all set up and running windows fine, its just when I try to add the second 10K drive that it won't appear in Windows and when I run FDISK and partition it / reboot / no partition????

It was so simple when I set up the first one a few weeks ago, just can't figure out why it won't work now - unless the drive is damaged, but it seems Ok - verifies OK - and appears in Disk Management as Unallocated but not in My computer - so the problem is simply that it won't partition (I am fairly familiar with FDISK, and have used it a good few times).

I'll give it one more try and see what happens!

Derek

linderman

DereK;

you will have no problems / if the disk has been verified / all else will come!

dont forget to wipe that baby clean / delete all partitions, logicaL drives, extended partions

OK your drive is a 36Gig but it was showing almost 17 gigs unallocated (means that 17 gig is not ready for use / its needs an extended partition & a logical drive letter)

I would just go with the delete everything and then repartition for one big 36 Gig drive


enjoy



Joe

Derek895

Thats just it - everything checks out ok it seem - but I cannot partition it any which way I try. It goes through the motions, ie. verifiying drive integrity, tells me to reboot, and yet there is no partition on the drive if I check it again with FDISK. So either the drive is damaged or the FDISK utility is not working.

linderman

derek


ok then use the tools in the win xp disk management / dynamic disk
make an extended partition and another logical drive / the tools in there will guide you through it



post back when you got it !



regards:


joe

Derek895

Joe, you will be relieved to hear that both drives are now working

I hadn't noticed that there was a partition tool in the Disk Management Console until you said do it from there. I thought FDISK was the only way to do it.

Everythings is running pretty quick. I ran a benchmark on both drives and the 15K averages about 65MB/s and the 10K about 28MB/s.

One final question, Is it a good idea to have two pagefiles, one on each drive?

Thanks for all your help

Derek

linderman

Derek:

Glad to hear you have it up and running! I had faith in Ya !


Sorry I dont know $hit about pagefiles or the benefits of having them on each drive ????? Maybe when you find an answer you could post it here if you would.

Regards:

Derek895

No probs, I will just experiment with them and see what seems best.

Thanks again for your help

Derek