Date: Wed, 27 May 1998 11:59:17 -0700 (PDT) From: Chris Timmons <skynyrd@opus.cts.cwu.edu> To: freebsd-scsi@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Micropolis 4345WS (Toshiba "Equium" 6200M) Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.3.96.980527114011.19085D-100000@opus.cts.cwu.edu>
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I received a couple of those Toshiba computers which Insight had the special on (intel dual p6 mb, integrated pro100 ethernet, aha-7880, etc.) The 12x atapi cd-room boots our freebsd CD's so quickly that you forget that you're booting from a CD. Really nice systems, but mine came with Micropolis 4345WS drives at firmware revision zC19. The manufacture date of my systems was around 4/97. Unfortunately I couldn't get any version of FreeBSD to install without the aha driver complaining about the drive timing out, and aborting the install. No matter what the settings on the 7880 (disable wide negotiation, throttle down xfer rate, etc) and after verifying drive jumpers, termination. As soon as sysinstall started doing anything disk intensive, the drives would lose it. I had both systems side by side with a pile of FreeBSD CD's and each behaved the same whether it was 2.2.2, 10/6/97 3.0-snap, 2/2/98 3.0-snap, etc. I did some searching around the net and learned that Micropolis has been history for a while. Fortunately firmware kit X502_4.exe is available from an ftp server in germany. I built an ASPI floppy (adaptec now gives away their dos/aspi drivers at their www page) and was able to upgrade the drive firmware. As soon as the firmware was upgraded all problems ceased. I haven't really thrashed the drive yet and cranked back up the xfer rate (& wide negotiation) so we'll see how the drive works under real load. Since other people have been buying these systems, I'm a little surprised that I'm the only person so far to have reported the problem. Fortunately it appears that there is a workaround (forget about any 5-year warranty on the tomahawk drives though :( -Chris p.s. a dejanews power search of 'micropolis AND firmware' works pretty good :) To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-scsi" in the body of the message
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