Hardware Common Questions and Answers Document # 39030 Q. How many devices can I have on the host adapter? A. You can have up to seven (7) SCSI devices per host adapter. Note: The AHA-274XAT can support up to fourteen (14) SCSI devices because it has two SCSI channels. The AHA-274XW can support up to fifteen (15) SCSI devices. Q. Can you mix different SCSI host adapters in the same system, such as the AHA-154x and the AHA-274x? A. As long as they do not conflict with IRQ, BIOS and DMA channels. The only exceptions are the AHA-174 x and the AHA-274x which can share IRQ's if the system allows shared IRQ's. Q. Is it possible to run an IDE or ESDI controller in the same system with a SCSI host adapter? A. Yes. The IDE or ESDI disk drive will always be the boot device. SCSI cannot take this function away from these controllers. Q. Can I replace my non-Adaptec SCSI adapter with one from Adaptec and read the data from the disk? A. SCSI is standard, but how data is translated onto the drive is not. Each manufacturer uses their own translation scheme. The drive will have to be low level formatted once it is connected to the Adaptec host adapter. Q. What does the message "BIOS not intended to run with this card" mean? A. This can happen when the BIOS or aspixdos.sys loads. This message indicates a conflict between our host adapter I/O port address and another card in the system. Change our port address to one of the alternate settings or change the other card's port address. Q. When should I disable the BIOS on the adapter? A. The BIOS should be disabled when the adapter is not operating a SCSI hard disk drive or when booting off of an IDE hard drive. Q. How many host adapters can you have in one system? A. You can have two AHA-152X host adapters in your system at one time. You can have up to four AHA-154X host adapters in your system at one time. You can have up to four AHA-174X host adapters in Standard Mode; in Enhanced mode, you are limited to the number of bus mastering slots in your system. With the AHA-274X series, you are limited by the number of available bus mastering slots. With AHA-284X, you are limited by the number of available VL-Bus Master slots. Most systems have two or three VL-Bus slots, but they may not all be capable of bus mastering. Check your motherboard documentation to determine this. You can also use a PCI controller and an ISA controller together in the same system if through the system CMOS you are able to allocate separate IRQ's to the ISA bus and the PCI bus. Q. Why does my computer or SCSI think that I have 7 hard drives (or CD-ROMs, or..) when I only have one drive connected? A. When installing an Adaptec SCSI host adapter, SCSI bus protocol must be observed. The host adapter should be SCSI ID 7 ( always the highest ID number ) so that the host adapter will always win SCSI arbitration. SCSI bus theory dictates that each device (the host adapter is a device) must have a unique and separate SCSI ID number. If a hard drive or other device is attached to the SCSI bus with the same ID as the host adapter, then the host adapter will see a response for "Phantom" devices at IDs where no device exists. To solve this problem, simply set the device ID to something other than that of the host adapters SCSI ID. If the device is a boot drive, then the SCSI ID should be set at 0. Q. How much ROM BIOS memory do the cards take up in the system? A. 16K for all cards, except the AHA-284XVL, AHA-2940, and AHA- 2940W which take up 32K. .Alternatively, users who need this support can download the latest AHA-154xB or AHA-174x micro-code and BIOS files from the BBS for use with an EPROM burner. The EPROM's needed are 27C128 at 200ns for the AHA-154xB and 150 for the AHA-174x. AHA-154xC, AHA-274x, AHA 284x, and AHA- 2940 boards come ready to support hard drives larger than 1 gigabyte, if Extended BIOS Translation for DOS drives greater than a gigabyte is set to enable. If you do not have an EPROM burner, call the Adaptec Software Hotline at (800) 442-7274. Q. Do Adaptec host adapters support RAID Software? A. Yes. The AHA-154x, AHA-164x, AHA-174x and the AHA-274x support RAID Level 0, 1, and 5 with the help of third party software. Q. What is bus mastering? A. Bus mastering uses DMA (Direct Memory Access). A bus mastering controller speeds up the system by by-passing the CPU when it addresses memory. This frees the CPU to process other commands that are in the cache. Q. Is target mode supported by Adaptec host adapters? A. Target mode has been implemented in Adaptec's bus mastering host adapter firmware for the AHA-154X, AHA-164X, AHA-174X. However, our ASPI software managers do not currently support target mode. To get target mode to work you would need to write your own host adapter software manager, which is not a trivial effort. Adaptec cannot provide you with any assistance in this effort. You can request a Technical Reference manual by calling our Literature Hotline at (800) 934-2766. Q. Can I put a tape drive and CD-ROM drives on the same host adapter as a hard drive? A. Yes. You can put up to seven ( 7 ) SCSI devices on 1 host adapter. It doesn't matter what the devices are. With some NetWare backup software, they require that the tape drives be on a different host adapter. Q. Why can't I use my new CD-ROM/Tape/WORM drive with my Adaptec host adapter? A. Most Adaptec SCSI host adapters are designed to support two hard drives and on some models , they can support floppy drives with just a bare board. Additional devices require the use of a device driver. For more information on what your particular host adapter/kit should support, contact your dealer or distributor, or look at KITS.TXT on this BBS for an overview. Specification sheets are available on Adaptec's Interactive Fax System. Q. When I boot, I see a message that says something like "SCSI BIOS not installed," or I see a message that says "Drive C already installed" or "Searching for Target 0". Why? A. The BIOS on Adaptec host adapter is used primarily for installing and booting from attached SCSI hard drives set to ID 0 (Target 0). SCSI ID of the hard drive is set with jumpers or switches located on the hard drive. If the host adapter you are using is not being used to control a SCSI hard drive, and the host adapter has been working with the attached devices and their associated drivers, then disable the BIOS on the host adapter you are using. Consult your host adapter User's Guide, or Installation Pamphlet for the jumper that enables the BIOS, or the software switch that needs to be set to disable the BIOS. AHA- 152x and AHA-154x boards can have the BIOS disabled with jumpers. The AHA-1640, AHA-174x, and AHA-274x boards' BIOS enabling is controlled by software. The AHA-154xC and AHA-2840 boards BIOS address is controlled by DIP switches located at the top edge of the board or through A for SCSI Select. AHA-2940 BIOS is controlled through A for SCSI Select only. Q. My system hangs on boot after I installed the SCSI Adapter. A. Make sure there are no address conflicts between the SCSI adapter and other cards in the system. Possible conflicts are the Port address, DMA channel, Interrupt, and BIOS address. Disconnect all SCSI peripherals from the adapter and try rebooting the system. If the adapter no longer hangs then heck for proper termination, cable quality, or SCSI ID. Q. The adapter recognizes the drive on boot up but gives "Drive not ready". Why? A. Make sure that the drive is jumped for spin up on power up. You may also enable the Send Start Unit command on many different models of Adaptec host adapters. Q. What if you already have a controller you are booting from? A. All Adaptec host adapters will co-exist with another controller (IDE, ESDI, RLL, etc.). Any hard drive not connected to the host adapter must be the primary or booting drive controller (IDE, ESDI, RLL, etc.). Q. I added an external CD-ROM drive and now my server won't boot from the hard disk. A. Terminate the drive and remove the termination on the host adapter. Q. I was using a non-Adaptec host adapter. I replaced it with an Adaptec host adapter, but it won't boot. A. Boot from a floppy. Back up your data. Low-level format the drive then restore your data. Q. Why can't I use the entire size of my hard drive that is rated over 1 gigabyte in capacity when I am using DOS? A. DOS 4.x and above has a limitation of 1024 cylinders per physical drive. This limitation, on current disk controllers and SCSI host adapter that utilize the standard of 1 Megabyte per cylinder, leads to a one gigabyte limit. The AHA-1542B ( with greater than gigabyte support) and the AHA-174XA (with special BIOS in Enhanced Mode using ASW-C174 v3.1) have the ability to break this limit. If your AHA-154XB has a BIOS part number of 420418-00D or greater, or if your AHA-174xA has a BIOS part number of 450216-00-A or greater, then you already have support for more than 1 gigabyte. Refer to your User's Manual addendum for help on setting up this feature. Q. When do I need to install the drivers? A. The Adaptec adapters that are equipped with a BIOS are set to run with two to seven SCSI hard disk drives. If the adapter is for operating SCSI hard disks only, then no drivers are required. The drivers are required for operating CD ROMs, tape drives, scanners, and removable media drives such as Bernoulli, Syquest and Magneto Optical drives. Q. My system works great with the adapter, but when I load the drivers the system hangs. A. Run with the minimum config.sys to verify that there is no conflict with another driver or TSR. Run the driver as the first device driver in the config.sys. Make sure you are running the latest driver for the adapter. Most drivers can be upgraded via the BBS at (408)945-7727. Q. Why does NetWare report volume sizes larger than the drive's capacity? A. This is due to extraneous bytes in the FAT area of the disk drive. This problem is easily resolved by performing a low level format of the drive. Use SCSI_FMT.ZIP from the Adaptec BBS, The format utility is also in the BIOS of all the adapters except the AHA-1740. Q. Which host adapter contains floppy controllers and which do not? A. Any Adaptec host adapter which has a "2" as the last number in the product name has an on board floppy controller. For example, the AHA-1542CF has floppy support and the AHA-1540CF does not. Q. What is the difference between ISA, EISA, and VESA systems? A. ISA (Industry Standard Architecture) utilizes a 16-bit bus. EISA (Enhanced PCI Industry Standard Architecture), also known as VL-bus or VESA local bus, uses a 32-bit bus and has advanced handling features. Q. What are the names of the external cables for each controller? A For the AHA-1510, AHA-1510A, AHA-152X,AHA-152XA, AHA154X, AHA-154XB, AHA154XC. AHA-154XCF host adapters you will need a standard 50-pin SCSI cable (Centronics-style). For the AHA-1640, AHA-1740, AHA-1740XA, AHA-274X series, the AHA- 28XVL, and the AHA-2940 series host adapters, you will need a high-density 50 pin SCSI Cable. The AHA-274XW and AHA- 2940W use a 68 pin "P" style connector to hook up the wide devices. Adaptec now offers cable kits for the Centronics style.The part number is ACK-L2L. For the high density style the part number is ACK- H2L. For the internal cable with five connectors, the part number is ACK-INT5. The AVA-1505/15 uses a DB25 external connector (Apple compatible). The cables can be ordered by calling (800) 442-7274. Q. Is there technical documentation available for Adaptec hardware and software products? How do I get it? A. You can call Adaptec's Literature Hotline at (800)934-2766 and request Technical Reference manuals or User's Guides for our hardware. Software manuals are available with the purchase of Adaptec software. Q. What should I do if I have spurious interrupt problems with the Adaptec boards? A. Try to enable the BIOS on the Adaptec card. Select a different IRQ. Do not share IRQ's. Q. When I boot up, I get the message "hdd controller failure". Why? A. If you are only using a SCSI hard disk drive in your system, you need to enter the CMOS SETUP in your system and insure that "Hard disk" is marked as "not installed" or "none". Q. How should I place my hard drives on the cable? A. Place a minimum of one foot of cable between each device. Q. How can I find out the parallel port types on my PC? A. You will need to either look in your manual, check your CMOS settings, or call the manufacturer of your system. Most notebook computers have Bi-directional ports. Most desktops have Uni- directional ports. Q. Does removable drives (MO, Bernoulli) work? A. Removable drives that are provided with VSD and TSD drivers will work. Q. My CD-ROM is supposed to support synchronous negotiation, but when I have synchronous negotiation enabled on the Adaptec card it won't work. Why not? A. It is often necessary to turn this setting to "disable" on the Adaptec board. This DOES NOT mean that the devices won't communicate synchronously. This setting only determines what INITIATES the dialog. Q. I have one of your 1540cf cards and a Network card installed in my system. With the BIOS disabled and the IRQ/DMA set so there is no conflict, my Network card still gets errors. A. After making changes in the SCSI SELECT, disable the BIOS completely by setting switch 6,7,& 8 to "on". This will completely disable the BIOS. This will also disable the SCSI SELECT menu so be sure to configure the settings before disabling. You will not be able to access SCSI SELECT with these switches enabled. Q. When running NetWare with drives that are greater than one gigabyte, do I enable the Extended BIOS Option for drives greater than 1 gigabyte? A. No. You do not enable that option when running under NetWare for any of our cards. You also need to ensure that on the AHA-154xC/CF that the dynamic scan of the SCSI Bus is disabled. Press for default settings in the SCSI Select utility. Q. Why are there seven identical hard drives on my screen? A. There is a SCSI ID conflict on the SCSI-bus. Make sure that the SCSI ID is 7 for the Adaptec host adapter and the SCSI ID for the hard drive is 0. Q. When I install the SCSI host adapter, my floppy no longer works. The error message says "FDD controller failure". A. Some adapters have a floppy interface included on the adapter. If you are running the floppy from another controller or from the motherboard, make sure that you disable the floppy controller on the SCSI adapter. If you are running the floppy from the SCSI host adapter then make sure your have disabled any other floppy controller in the system. Q. My second IDE hard disk fails when I have the Adaptec card in the system. What could cause this ? A. Make sure you disable the BIOS on the Adaptec card when your system boots from an IDE drive. The Adaptec card's BIOS is only needed if your computer is booting from a hard disk, attached to the Adaptec controller. The IDE controller is the boot controller in this case and the Adaptec BIOS is not needed. Install the EZSCSI software package on your IDE boot drive (C: drive). EZSCSI will automatically install all the drivers necessary for the SCSI devices attached to your Adaptec SCSI card. Q. Can you install more than one PCI controller in the same system. A. As long as in the system CMOS , you are able to configure each SCSI controller to use a separate IRQ. Q. Can you install more than one ISA 6360 chipset card in the same system. A. Yes, but the device driver in the config.sys must state both the port addresses and the IRQ's. Ex. Device=C:\SCSI\ASPIXDOS.SYS /P340 /Q11 /P140 /Q10. OS/2 Q. How does a removable drive (Bernoulli, Syquest, etc.) work under OS/2? A. A removable drive works as a floppy, hard drive, or removable drive under OS/2 2.x. IBM only supports it as a floppy drive. Floppy drive: It can be used as a floppy drive if installed under OS/2 2.x. FDISKPM will not see the drive. The data cannot be interchanged from a DOS machine to OS/2. Under the drive icon on the OS/2 desktop there will be a floppy icon for the removable drive. The CONFIG.SYS file must have the following: BASEDEV=AHA154X.ADD /V. Hard drive: It can be used as a hard drive if LOCKDRV.FLT is installed in the CONFIG.SYS file. (LOCKDRV.EXE is on our BBS). The drive acts as a hard drive. FDISKPM will see the drive and also can read/write data saved under DOS and vice versa. However, you cannot remove the cartridge once the operating system is loaded. The system must be reset to change the cartridge. The CONFIG.SYS file must have the following: BASEDEV=AHA154X.AD /V BASEDEV=LOCKDRV.FLT /UNIT:0 Removable drive: It can be used as a removable hard drive by using OS/2ASPI.DMD, located on the BBS or included with OS/2 2.x. FDISKPM will not see the drive. You can read/write data in both the OS/2 and DOS, retaining the removability by using the appropriate removable drive manfacturer's driver. If the drive is on SCSI ID 2 then the CONFIG.SYS file must have the following: BASEDEV=AHA154X.ADD /V /A:0 /!DM:2 BASEDEV=OS2ASPI.DMD In above examples an Adaptec AHA-1542 controller is used. In addition to the above statements, one must have OS2SCSI.CMD and OS2DASD.DMD loaded in the CONFIG.SYS file. Q. Which CD-ROMs are supported by OS/2 2.11? A. The following CD-ROMs are supported by OS/2 2.11: Hitachi: CDR-1650S, 1750S, 3650, 3750 IBM: CD-ROM I, CD-ROM II Chinon: 431, 435, 535 Mitsumi: CRMC-Lu005, FX001, FX001D NEC: CDR-25, 36, 37, 38, 72, 73, 74, 82, 83, 84, 3Xe, 3Xi, 3xp Panasonic: CR-501, LK-MC501S, 501B, 521, 522, 523, 562, 563 Pioneer: DRM-600, 604X Sony: CDU-541, 561, 6111, 6211, 7211, 31A, 7305 Texel: DM-3021, 3024, 5021, 5024, 3028, 5028 Toshiba: XM-3201, 3301, 3401 If your CD-ROM is not on the above list, please contact the drive manufacturer or IBM. Q. What is the command line in the OS/2 CONFIG.SYS file for Adaptec controller? A. BASEDEV=AHA154X.ADD (For AHA-1540/42B/C controller) Q. Do I need to enable extended BIOS translation in AHA-1542, AHA-1742, and AHA-2742 cards under OS/2? A. There has been a slight change in the way OS/2 behaves since the release of OS/2 2.1. If you format a partition using FAT, it must be within the first 1024 cylinders of the drive. This is intended to insure compatibility with DOS. OS/2 2.0 which did not check the cylinder location before formatting a partition. If you want to partition a drive that is greater than 1 gigabyte you should enable extended BIOS translation to allow maximum flexibility. Q. Does OS/2 1.3 support CD-ROMs? A. Only the Denon DRD 253, Sony CDU-541, and Toshiba TXM3301al are supported. For other CD-ROM information please consult IBM or Microsoft. Q. Does OS/2 1.3 support tape drives? A. Any tape drive software that uses LADDR support will work. Sytos 1.35 is recommended. Q. How do you add Adaptec controllers on a pre-existing installation of OS/2? A. Do not re-install the operating system. Download IBMOS213.HLP from our BBS and follow the instructions described in the text. Q. Is it possible to use a Magneto Optical (MO) device as a fixed disk with OS/2 v2.0? A. Adaptec has a file on the BBS called LOCKDRV.ZIP ( in the OS/2 file library ) that allows a removable media drive to be used as a fixed disk. There is a text file with the driver that explains how to use it. Q. I want to add a WORM drive to my Adaptec SCSI host adapter under OS/2. Is this possible? A. You will need to get third party software in order to do this. The file 3RDPARTY.DOC, found on the BBS, has phone numbers of companies that have device drivers available for Adaptec host adapters. Q. I need to install more than one Adaptec SCSI host adapter under OS/2 v2.0. Is this possible? A. Multiple host adapters are supported with IBM and MS OS/2 v1.3 and IBM OS/2 v2.0. With IBM or Microsoft OS/2 v1.3, however, only multiple adapters of the same type may be used. SCO UNIX Q. What other Adaptec host adapter drivers come with the IHV HBA diskette that is shipping with the UnixWare 1.1? What is the set up for the IRQ? A. Following are the host adapter driver names and IRQ settings which should be set on the host adapter: Host Adapter Model IRQ Driver Prefix AHA-274X 15 adsa AHA-284X 15 adsa AHA-294X 10 adsl AIC-7870 10 adsl AIC-7770 15 adsa AHA-174X 9 adse AHA-154X 11 adsc AHA-152X 10 adss AIC-6360, AIC-6260 10 adss AHA-1510 (not for primary) 10 adss Q. Can I use a drive with more than 1 gigabyte of capacity with SCO UNIX v3.2.2, v3.2.4 and ISC v3.0? A. A special driver diskette is required from SCO to support drives, having more than a gigabyte, with SCO UNIX v3.2.2. With SCO UNIX v3.2.4 and SCO v3.0, no changes are required for Adaptec host adapters. If the hard drive is the primary drive then the root file system must lie within a partition less than 1 gigabyte in size. The ROM BIOS cannot access boot information if it lies beyond 1 gigabyte. Q. I have UNIX installed on my ESDI (or IDE) drive. Can I add an Adaptec host adapter to install a SCO tape drive and do backups under UNIX? A. Yes. Disable the host adapter BIOS. Use the mkdev tape command to configure the tape drive. The backup can be done using the cpio command or other UNIX commands. Consult your UNIX documentation for details. Q. What other Adaptec host adapter drivers come with the IHV HBA diskette shipping with UnixWare 1.1? What is the set up for the IRQ? A. Following are the host adapter driver names and IRQs which should be set on the host adapter: Host Adapter Model IRQ Driver Prefix AHA-274X 15 adsa AHA-284X 15 adsa AHA-294X 10 adsl AIC-7870 10 adsl AIC-7770 15 adsa AHA-174X 9 adse AHA-154X 11 adsc AHA-152X 10 adss AIC-6360, AIC-6260 10 adss AHA-1510 (not for primary) 10 adss NOVELL Q. How can you prevent de-activation under Novell on extended hard drives? A. Get a quality cable (SCSI-2 specification) for any kind of Adaptec card. This can be purchased from the Adaptec Software Hotline at (800)442-7274. Revised on 4/1/96