Date: Fri, 21 Feb 1997 19:47:48 +0100 From: j@uriah.heep.sax.de (J Wunsch) To: mike@sentex.net (Mike Tancsa) Cc: questions@freebsd.org, scsi@freebsd.org Subject: Re: New SCSI card... Old HD.. Message-ID: <Mutt.19970221194748.j@uriah.heep.sax.de> In-Reply-To: <3.0.1.32.19970221121819.00a5f1c0@sentex.net>; from Mike Tancsa on Feb 21, 1997 12:18:19 -0500 References: <3.0.1.32.19970221121819.00a5f1c0@sentex.net>
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As Mike Tancsa wrote: > I am going to be adding a NCR based SCSI controller to our news machine to > take some of the load off the 2940 thats in there and also to allow us to > add another disk. My question is, will I have to low level format the > drive that is currently being used on the Adaptec ? If so, what are the > procedures for it... The new SCSI card is just a ASUS 200 (NCR 810), so I > doubt it has too many smarts in it in terms of disk formatting etc... . You never need to low-level format a SCSI drive because of another controller. Almost the only reason that might you considering a low-level formatting is too many bad blocks (in order to restructure the drive). . You can always use /sbin/scsiformat to low-level format a drive, no need for stinkin' BIOS functions. :) . The worst that could happen is that you gotta revamp your fdisk table on the drive (if you're using one). However, i think the NCR BIOS does a good job in detecting the previously used geometry, and adapting its own geometry translation values to it. . Even in this case, you could get away without any restructuring in two cases: you've been using ``dangerously dedicated'' mode, or you are willing to fiddle with the C/H/S values in your fdisk table. For the latter, you basically gotta pick the offset and total number of sectors of your fdisk slice, and recalculate the beginning C/H/S values according to the geometry translation method of you controller. This will usually leave you with `odd' figures (the slice seems to start ``inmidst a track''), but i know that it works. -- cheers, J"org joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de -- http://www.sax.de/~joerg/ -- NIC: JW11-RIPE Never trust an operating system you don't have sources for. ;-)
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