OK, who remembers OS 9...? IDE vs. SCSI help needed.

[Buzz]

w/ Harbourmaster's help, I've been trying to get the latest and greatest OS 9 machine (MDD 1.25GHz DP) to play nice w/ our vintage industrial strength HP SCSI scanner, via the latest rev Adaptec 2930 card. Prior google fu seemed to show that a QS G4 was the most potent computer to support what I'm trying to do, but I couldn't glean concise evidence to show that a MDD would definitely not work; so we're trying it. Initially, we swapped the 2930 card for the scanner out of the GigE G4 it was in, as well as the UW2SCSI drive that was in there w/ the OS and other scanner related software. It took trying a few different UW2SCSI cards to get one that played nice w/ the MDD and the drive from the GigE, but one of the ATTO's from "the drawer" seems to work...

Here's the rub, when starting up in OS 9 from the ATTO SCSI card, or an OS 9 CD, the on board IDE drives aren't recognized. Booting from OS X recognizes everything; but for some reason (hence this post) the MDD won't fully boot into OS 9 from the on board IDE drive... there are two IDE drives, a 120GB w/ OS X, and an 80GB w/ OS 9. My hope is to get OS 9 working from the on board IDE drive, and get rid of the 2nd SCSI card and extra SCSI drive at that point. I'm not sure what's causing the hiccup, but until Harbourmaster returns, I'm pretty much stuck w/ doing things that don't require opening up the MDD. FWIW, there is also a second (PCI) video card in the MDD that we were using to drive a second monitor, but Baby Buzz was able to help me swap adapters and cables, and now both monitors are successfully running off of the AGP slot's Radeon 9600XT, so the PCI Radeon 9200 will also eventually be removed.

It seems as though the MDD is confusing itself over the various busses, though in full OS 9 mode, when booted from the ATTO SCSI card, the scanner, and other things OS 9 seem to work fine-- w/ the noted exception of recognizing the IDE bus' drives, and therefore OS X, which means to get into OS X, you have to restart and hold down the option key, and wait for the MDD to find everything and get its bearings. Any OS 9 gurus out there have any tips or tricks on how to resolve/troubleshoot this mess? When Harbourmaster returns, the obvious thing to do is pull the PCI SCSI and video cards, and see if that helps to clear up the confusion. The 80GB IDE OS 9 drive is running 9.2.2, but I'm wondering if maybe there's some extensions that are needed, or specifically not needed that would allow the IDE drive to be used successfully before Harbourmaster can trek back up here for the hand's on stuff? I'm guessing whatever that might be is missing from the OS 9 CD, or at least its startup folder, since the MDD also doesn't recognize the IDE bus when booted from it.

Thanks,
Buzz
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[marksomebodyelse]

Don't osX and os9 use different disk formats? Os x can recognize an os9 disk but can not boot from one and os9 does not recognize a osx format at all. i could be way off base here so don't jump all over me if I am

[Doc]

> when booted from the ATTO SCSI card, the scanner,
> and other things OS 9 seem to work fine...

Because Atto made high quality products for professionals and Adaptec made cheap consumer-grade cr@p.

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> the on board IDE drives aren't recognized.

Please explain in more detail what you mean by this. The drives don't mount on the Desktop? The drives aren't detectable in the Drive Setup Utility? The drives aren't visible to a third party app like Hard Disk Toolkit?

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How did you erase the drives for OS 9? Did you do so while booted from OS 9 or did you do it while booted from OS X? If the latter, did you check the box to install OS 9 disk drivers?

...

The rule of thumb for troubleshooting problems when multiple busses and drives are involved is to simplify it and attack one element at a time.

Make sure that you're not putting a hard drive on the same bus as the optical drive (for now).

Remove the IDE hard drives, set the jumpers on one to the Master position and put that one back and see if that drive alone is recognized.

[Buzz]

Drives don't mount on desktop, and bus not shown correctly in ASP; shows as SCSI w/ nothing attached... have not tried Drive Setup Utility; will look at that tomorrow. Booted from OS X to format 80GB drive, and did install OS 9 drivers. IIRC drive and optical are separate busses in MDD. Did use master setting separately when formatting IDE drives, then went to CS when both drives installed in bracket. In OS X, everything is recognized, it's just trying to boot to OS 9 from the IDE drive that presents the biggest problem... I'm assuming if it boots from the OS 9 IDE drive, it'll recognize the rest of the IDE bus (y/n?). Conceptually, I understand the booting from the SCSI card issue and not seeing the other busses, and again IIRC, the optical bus is slower than the two drive busses, and I'm not sure if that is a contributing factor. I have some 3rd party OS 9 utils that I'll move over to the MDD tomorrow also to try out. Unfortunately w/ the nerve damage in arms/hands, gotta wait for Harbourmaster for drive/jumper removal, and other inside the MDD operations. Just for shiggles, would formatting up a X/9 (classic) FW disc do anything diagnostically? How about just an OS 9 FW drive? Would booting from such an external cause the MDD to recognize the other busses differently, or is that strictly software? Thanks,

Buzz
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[Doc]

> bus not shown correctly in ASP; shows as SCSI w/ nothing attached...

Is that the native IDE bus that you're talking about or is it a PCI card? If the latter, it's perfectly normal to have the card look like a SCSI device and it's safe to ignore that "symptom."


> would formatting up a X/9 (classic) FW disc do anything diagnostically?

Not from what I can tell of your situation. No more than booting from an OS 9 install CD would.

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BTW: Why are you trying to run OS 9 on that Mac? Those old Adaptec cards were mostly supported natively by Mac OS X 10.1-10.4 and there were OS X kernel extensions available as well.

VueScan (OS X) supports HP SCSI scanners. They've even got troubleshooting tips for them.
http://www.hamrick.com/vuescan/vuescan.htm

[JoeH]

Which "latest rev Adaptec" card do you have? As I recall from doing a BTO order 1.25 DP G4, it came with one that was identical to the retail card. That is compared to earlier OEM cards with a soldered on Apple specific ROM. The last ROM version from Adaptec was 4.3, I forget the last Apple ROM version.

[Buzz]

native IDE bus, but it appears to be an OS 9 issue, because, as you say, same symptom from OS 9 CD.
will likely eventually evolve to VueScan for scanner, but wanted to use a couple of other native OS 9 apps as well on that workstation.
I'm assuming we could maybe go CS on the OS X drive cage, and add a second drive there, and move the OS 9 drive to the secondary cage/bus as a solo drive, and set it to master, but gotta wait for Harbourmaster to aid in the needed manpower. Issue is w/ OS 9 recognition, and got install from same CD, so thought that might be cause for missing and/or needed extension which is why I asked initially... thought maybe a different install CD/DVD might have better working set of extensions and be explanation for current behavior.
Adaptec 2930 card is eprom rev 4.3... I ordered three of 'em awhile back when I found an outfit that had 'em for $9/ea, and had a deal on shipping for orders over $25; figured they were getting scarce, so might as well "be prepared". I do have an earlier Apple ROM 2930, but it's too early for this application, as well as an even earlier one from a Power Computing clone... thought about trying to copy the 4.3 eprom onto the earlier card(s), but haven't found easy access to an eprom burner.

[neophyte]

>Did use master setting separately when formatting IDE drives, then went to CS when both drives installed in bracket.<

IIRC, CS setting may not work. Did you try setting one as master and the other as slave? Or both to master on 2 separate IDE busses?

[JoeH]

For the Adaptec card, did you either pull the jumper on the card or install it with the jumper on just one side of the connection? As I recall, that is necessary in G4 PowerMac's.

But neophyte may have the answer. CS was flakey in most PowerMac G4's, and even depends on which drives you install sometimes.

The only other issue I ever ran into with the DP 1.25 was that it needed its own version of the OS 9 installer discs. I don't think any of the retail discs supported it.

[testcase]

You state that ASP "sees" the SCSI card. Have you tried a different SCSI cable? A new cable I bought was defective. Drove me nuts at first. Is the scanner "terminated? Sometimes it was important.