SCO OS 5.0.x and LSI logic 1030 problems

[Roberto Zini]

Hi.

A customer of ours reported a problem when installing SCO OS 5.0.x (he
tried with 5.0.5, 5.0.6 and 5.0.7) on an IBM Eseries 225 mod. 8647-5ax
equipped with a LSI Logic 1030 SCSI controller and a 73GB SCSI HD.

He got the drivers for the LSI from both IBM and LSI itself but the
problem is that the OS actually "sees" the controller and the disk, but
the size reported is approx 4GB instead of the 73GB.

I'm trying to have the output of hwconfig as to check the CHS values
reported by the controller but I'm wondering if biosgeom (which should
be able to interact with the kernel concerning the disk geometry stored
into the BIOS) is able to work with SCSI devices as well.

Thanks,
Roberto
--
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Roberto Zini email : r.zini<AT>strhold.it
Technical Support Manager -- Strhold Evolution Division R.E. (ITALY)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
"Has anybody around here seen an aircraft carrier?"
(Pete "Maverick" Mitchell - Top Gun)

[Bela Lubkin]

Roberto Zini wrote:

> A customer of ours reported a problem when installing SCO OS 5.0.x (he
> tried with 5.0.5, 5.0.6 and 5.0.7) on an IBM Eseries 225 mod. 8647-5ax
> equipped with a LSI Logic 1030 SCSI controller and a 73GB SCSI HD.
>
> He got the drivers for the LSI from both IBM and LSI itself but the
> problem is that the OS actually "sees" the controller and the disk, but
> the size reported is approx 4GB instead of the 73GB.
>
> I'm trying to have the output of hwconfig as to check the CHS values
> reported by the controller but I'm wondering if biosgeom (which should
> be able to interact with the kernel concerning the disk geometry stored
> into the BIOS) is able to work with SCSI devices as well.

LSI recently reported this same problem to us and together we worked out
a fix. As you suspect, it is geometry related. The "lsil" driver was
always reporting a geometry of 64 heads, 32 sectors/track. Dividing
73GB by those numbers results in about 70000 cylinders. Since cylinders
are stored in an unsigned short, this wraps around to some small number
like 4GB.

The "lsil" version number that includes this fix is: 1.03.27. It may
actually be issued with a higher version number (if any other changes
were pending). They are supposed to be reissuing the driver with this
fix in it. We are also in the process of testing it and will issue our
own build of it some time soon (but I don't know exactly when).

I'm not sure whether you can use "biosgeom" to force the issue. You
might as well try it. Boot the CD with:

Boot
: defbootstr link=lsil biosgeom=(8800,255,63)

Watch the "%disk" message -- is it using your override geometry or still
64x32?

>Bela<