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1991-04-14
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____________________________________________________________
IBM AT or Compatible
Adaptec AHA-1540/1540A/1542A/1540B/1542B/1640/1740 SCSI Adapter
Board
SCSI Hard Drive/Tape Drive
MS-DOS 3.3
This utility will not operate while the 80386 is in virtual mode.
Attempting to do so will cause the program to abort. In
addition, this program will not run when another device driver
has been loaded that talks directly to the adapter such as the
ASW-1410 ASPI Manager.
NOTE: The 1740 must be in standard mode in order for this
utility to function.
SCSICNTL is a program that runs under MS-DOS allowing you to
reprogram your SCSI device to meet the needs of your environment.
Reprogramming your SCSI device allows you to achieve the highest
possible throughput for the given operating environment you will
be working in.
This program assumes a basic knowledge of SCSI and makes no
attempt to teach you about SCSI. Although, there is help
available for all options in each submenu window, it is advised
that you obtain the programmers reference guide for your
particular device, or get the ANSI SCSI Standard Rev 17B document
to gain full knowledge of the parameters in each window. If you
do not have access to either of these documents, read this manual
carefully and use the help system that is built into the program.
Through the mode sense pages you can reprogram a SCSI device.
This program does have a knowledge of certain SCSI devices and
for those devices, the defaults are listed in each program
window. For those devices that are not known, the defaults are
listed as "Unknown". Unknown devices can still be programmed,
but it is up to you to have the necessary documentation relating
to the device you are attempting to re-program.
With some experimentation, you can find the best settings for
your environment. All but two of the menu options may be used
without risk to data stored on a SCSI device. Where options that
could effect data integrity, there are many warnings. In some of
the menus, helpful recommendations for a specific operating
environment are available. Take these recommendations for
starters and tune them to meet your needs. Some options
available can reduce the throughput of your device, but give a
higher level of data integrity. While others will yield higher
throughput and reduce the data integrity. Reduction of data
integrity is up to you. If you have a high level of confidence
in your SCSI device, this is not a risk, but it is your option.
If you have very little understanding of SCSI, study the menu
choices and take the time to go through each option and ask for
help. The help provided is sometimes technical in nature, but
what you are doing is highly technical in nature. If you are not
comfortable with this program, it is advised that you do not use
it. But keep in mind that the program will not allow you to
destroy data unless you make the effort to do so.
The program may be run off of a floppy drive or off of a hard
drive. The disk does not have any copy-protection. Use the MS-
DOS 'copy' utility to install the programs on to your hard drive
or another floppy drive. See your MS-DOS documentation for usage
of the 'copy' command.
To run this program on the in your CPU, you must have the host
adapter base I/O address set to 0x330h. This is the default, but
if you have changed this default it will be necessary for you to
change it back. Please refer to your SCSI Host Adapter
Installation guide for help.
To start the program, type SCSICNTL <ENTER>.
You will be presented with a window that contains a disclaimer
which will require you to press ENTER to continue, next a window
with Copyright information and the version number of the program
is displayed. You will asked to press ENTER to continue again.
The screen will clear and you will be presented with a window
along with a window that states, "Looking for devices on the SCSI
bus". If you have a SCSI tape drive in the system and the tape
is not loaded in the tape drive (Tape drive LED is off), an error
message window pops up at the bottom of the display showing a
"Not Ready" message. This message can be ignored as it is simply
stating that the tape drive does not have a tape in it. For
almost all the options available a tape does not need to be
loaded in the drive. If any other error appears, there may be
something wrong with the device that was being reviewed.
After the search for SCSI devices is complete the main menu
window pops up, shown below.
Drive 0 MAIN MENU [Modify]
1. Select Device
2. Format Utility
3. Read Device Defect List
4. Read/Write Error Recovery Page
5. Disconnect/Reconnect Control Page
6. Direct Access Device Format Page
7. Rigid Disk Drive Geometry Page
8. Cache Control Page
9. Unique Control Page
10. Set mode of operation (View/Modify)
11. SCSI Adapter Configuration
12. Additional SCSI Device Information
13. Exit
Enter Selection:
The program uses menus to guide you through the programmable
pages of a SCSI device. Along with the listed options, as shown
above, is a window that contains the information about the SCSI
device that is currently selected. The program defaults the SCSI
device to drive 0 as displayed in the upper left hand corner of
the main menu window. If device zero is not available, the
program will find the first available device on the SCSI bus and
use that device as the default.
The information, in the window to the left of the main menu
selections contains the manufacturer, model number of the SCSI
device, part number, firmware level, firmware date, and serial
number. Take note that not all SCSI devices have all this
information available and those fields will be blank.
In the upper right hand corner of the window, is the current
state the program is in. It defaults to "Modify". You can use
option 10 to change it to "View" if you like.
Options 4 through 9 have a similar window format. The menu
heading will reflect the option you have chosen from the main
menu. Like the main menu, the drive that has been selected is
displayed in the upper left hand corner of the display. The
sub-menu headings or fields are, "Parameters", "Defaults",
"Current", "Options", and "Selected".
Parameters
This field is a listing of descriptions for the possible
programming options.
Defaults
This field contains a listing of defaults for the known device,
if the device is of an unknown type, the word "Unknown" appears
for all of the parameters.
Current
This field lists all of the parameters that are currently set for
the selected device.
Options
This field lists all of the available options for a known device.
If the device is not known, the word "Unknown" is displayed for
all the parameters.
Selected
This field is where the cursor is placed for you to enter your
choice for each programmable option that is supported for a known
device. Not all devices support all the parameters of a given
main menu selection. If the device is an unknown type of device,
you will need to have the SCSI Reference manual for that device
in order to select the correct options for that device.
For a given device, the cursor will be placed in the "Selected"
field. Some options are not available for some devices. In this
case, the cursor will be placed accordingly. If the device is a
known device, the options available for that device will be
listed and the cursor will be placed in the "Selected" field for
you to enter the option. Unless you are in 'view' mode. If in
'view' mode, all the current settings for a device will be
displayed and you will be asked to "Press <ENTER> to continue",
doing so will return you to the main menu.
When in 'Modify' mode, you may enter the listed option for that
parameter, press a '?' to get help, or press <ENTER> to select
the current setting. If you press the '?', a help window will
describe each option for the field you are currently in and what
the effect of each option is. If the program is only expecting a
single character response, you will not have to press <ENTER>.
For instance, if the option for the field you are in is (E)nable
or (D)isable, pressing '?', 'e', or 'd' will not require the
<ENTER> key to be pressed, but if the field is expecting a range
of values such as 0-65535, pressing the <ENTER> key will be
required before action will occur.
At the end of each page, you will receive another prompt asking
if you wish to 'S'tore, or make 'A'ctive, or 'C'ancel the above
changes.
If you choose to 'S'tore the parameters as they appear under the
'Selected' field, these parameters will become the 'current'
parameters until you use this program to change them again.
If you choose 'A' to make the page active only, the currently
selected parameters will be sent to the drive and will stay in
effect until the system is re-booted. This is helpful if you
only wish to make changes, for instance, under MS-DOS and when
you reboot the system, you may enter XENIX and the parameters
that were previously installed will take effect. This allows you
to reprogram a device for one environment, while you are in that
environment, and reboot the system to return to the old
parameters for another environment.
Answering 'C' will simply return you to the main menu aborting
any changes you have made.
Options '6' and '2' from the main menu are the only options that
could have any effect on data you have on the hard drive. Be
sure you have selected the correct device before using either of
these options.
The options available at the main menu are as follows:
This allows you to select the device that will be used during the
program. You may choose from any of the devices in the window
and you may reselect devices as often as you like. The default
device is zero.
Selecting this option will open a window on the display that
shows a warning about the device that is currently selected and a
prompt that asks, "DO YOU REALLY WANT TO CONTINUE?". Answering
this prompt with anything other than a 'Y' will abort the format
and you will be returned to the main menu. If you choose to
continue (answering with a 'Y'), the drive will be formatted and
ALL USER DATA ON THE DRIVE WILL BE DESTROYED. While formatting
the drive the system will appear as if it is doing nothing. The
only message that will be displayed will be, "Formatting Drive
x", where 'x' is the drive you have selected. If the drive is a
tape drive, the message, "Erasing Drive x", will be displayed.
If you are erasing a tape, you will need to have a tape loaded in
the drive, or you will get a "Not Ready" error message displayed.
Some devices are hard sectored and will only check for added
media flaws when the format command is issued. In this case, the
format will be done in a matter of seconds. This is due to the
fact that these devices keep track of potentially bad sectors and
only reassign those sectors for a low-level format. If no
sectors are found to be defective, a low-level format of these
devices will not result in loss of user data. In all other
cases, user data will be lost for any SCSI device.
When you use this option, you will be presented with a window
that asks, "Which list do you want (P,G,A)?". In the middle of
the screen is a window that outlines each of the options. The
"P" list contains the original manufacturers defect list. The
"G" list contains a list of defects that have been mapped out
during a format command. Choosing "A" will display both lists on
the screen.
This window allows you to alter the error recovery parameters of
a SCSI device. You can control things like ECC and Automatic
Read/Write Reallocation; which allows the SCSI device to
automatically reallocate bad sectors dynamically.
This window allows you to set the levels that SCSI bus
arbitration will occur, based on how full/empty the SCSI buffer
is for the device that you have selected. These parameters
really only effect the XENIX/OS2 operating environments.
This page allows you to set the SCSI sparing scheme for a device.
SCSI devices have spare sectors and tracks that are used for
replacing bad sectors and tracks. By reducing the number of
spares in this page you can increase your storage, but you lose
the spares that may be required someday. Increasing the number
of spares will decrease the total storage available on your SCSI
device, but will allow the device to have a greater number of
spare sectors to use for replacing bad ones. Not all SCSI
devices allow these parameters to be altered.
You will be warned that altering this information will require a
low-level format to be done. Also the only storage options
available are 'S'tore and 'C'ancel. You have the option of
aborting the format, but if you leave the program without
formatting the device, the parameters you have altered will be
changed back to thier original values.
This page is available for viewing only and cannot be altered.
It contains the physical specifications for a SCSI device. Such
as the number of heads and cylinders for a SCSI hard drive.
This page is only available for devices that this utility will
support. If the device is not supported, an error message will
be displayed in the center of the main window stating so.
If the device is a supported device, and the drive has a true
cache, you will have windows appear for some option
recommendations for specific operating environments. You can
choose any options you like, but if you follow the
recommendations you will get the most you can out of your SCSI
device. Feel free to experiment with these options for your
application to get the most out the drive that you can.
For devices that only have a read ahead buffer, you will not be
presented with any suggestions for setting this option as it is
either on or off. Drives such as CDC and Maxtor have read ahead
buffers, that may or may not be enabled from the factory.
This page is only available for devices that this utility will
support. If the device is not supported, an error message will
be displayed in the center of the main window stating so. This
window will display unique control parameters of a SCSI device.
This allows you to set the mode of operation for the utility. If
you are in 'view' mode, you may view the current settings for the
device you have selected. This option is a toggle and remains in
effect until you press it again. For some SCSI devices, the mode
may be changed from Modify to View depending on if the SCSI
device you have selected will actually allow the altering of a
page.
This will display information relating to the SCSI adapter in
your system. Under the heading of the window will be the part
number of the SCSI host adapter you have installed in your
system. The rest of the window shows the base I/O port address,
DMA channel, Interrupt channel, and the SCSI ID of the host
adapter. It will also display a number associated with the
firmware level of the adapter board if you are using a AHA-154xA
or latter.
If you are using this program with the micro-channel host
adapter, the DMA channel will not be displayed. This is not a
hardware configuration option, but is instead set in the POS
registers of the system.
Another window is also displayed to show further operating
information that is stored on the host adapter. This window will
only appear for the AHA-154xA or latter. The information
indicates whether the host adapter is set to negotiate for
synchronous or not, whether parity checking on the SCSI bus is
enabled, the host adapter DMA write/read pulse widths, the strobe
off time, the bus on/off times. The window next to this shows
the status regarding the synchronous negotiation per device. If
the adapter succesfully negotiated for synchronous protocol, the
synchronous period and offsets are displayed. If the device
could not support synchronous, the message asynchronus appears.
This window provides detailed information about the SCSI device
according to what was recieved from the device via the SCSI
INQUIRY command. This information as displayed is in accord with
the SCSI-2 specification.
Used to return to MS-DOS. A message is displayed indicating that
the SCSI is being cleaned up. You may hear noises emanating from
your SCSI devics as they recalibrate. This is due to the SCSI
bus being issued a reset, which forces the SCSI devices into a
power on state.
SCSI: Usually pronounced 'skuzzy' stands for Small Computer
Systems Interface.
SCSI Adapter: This is the board that occupies a slot in the host
CPU. It is not a SCSI controller. It is a device on the SCSI
bus.
SCSI Bus: This can be thought of as the cable that is connected
between the SCSI adapter and the SCSI devices.
Target: This is the device that a SCSI command has been sent to.
Target ID: The actual ID of the SCSI controller on the SCSI bus.
The SCSI host adapter uses target ID 7, for instance. All SCSI
controllers must have a unique target ID to work on the SCSI bus.
The target ID ranges from 0 to 7. The higher the target ID
number, the higher the priority a device has on the SCSI bus.
This is akin to the drive select on ST-506 drives.
Initiator: This the same as 'host'. This is the system that
issued the SCSI command. While it is possible for more than one
computer to be on the SCSI bus, this feature is currently not
supported.
LUN: This stands for Logical Unit Number. All SCSI devices are
accessed by the target/LUN of the device. SCSI devices that have
a SCSI controller imbedded in them, like SCSI hard drives, are
assigned a target ID and LUN ID of 0. The LUN can be from 0 to
7. This is used only if a SCSI controller has more than one
device attached to it.
Mode Sense: This is a SCSI command that allows an external
program call up and modify parameters for that device.
Page: This refers to the page of the mode sense request. The
programmable parameters of a SCSI device are kept in pages. Each
page has a unique set of parameters associated with that page.
Consider a page like a small window into the heart of a SCSI
device.
Disconnect: A SCSI device that has to seek to read/write data
sent to/from the host system, will notify the host that it must
relinquish the SCSI bus to complete the requested command. This
action allows the host system to issue another command to another
SCSI device while the other SCSI device is working on the last
command sent. This action is best noticed in the XENIX/OS2
environments.
Reconnect: This concerns the action of a SCSI device that has
disconnected from the SCSI bus due to a seek command being
issued. Once the device has a certain percentage of data in its
local buffer, it will request access to the SCSI bus to send the
data to the host system. This is best noticed in a XENIX/OS2
operating environment. These operating systems are multi-
threaded (multi-tasking) and do not have to wait for a specific
command to be completed before another command is issued.
Priority: The priority of a SCSI device is determined by the
target ID of the device. The higher the number, the higher the
priority a device has on the SCSI bus. This is how SCSI devices
arbitrate for the SCSI bus.
Bus Arbitration: This refers to the transparent
disconnection/reconnection of a SCSI device. SCSI devices will
get off of the SCSI bus if they have to seek to get data. This
allows the SCSI adapter to issue other commands to another SCSI
device that is not doing anything. Another term for this is
multi-threaded. A SCSI device that has data in the buffer will
ask for the SCSI bus again, and send the data for the last
command that it received. If two or more devices attempt to grab
the SCSI bus, it falls to the priority of the device to determine
who shall win the bus.
REQ: The SCSI bus uses this signal for the synchronization of
data on the SCSI bus. Broken down, it simply is a signal that
means a SCSI device is asking for a byte of data.
ACK: This SCSI signal is the inverse of the REQ signal. It
means that a SCSI device has received the byte of data that was
REQuested.
Asynchronous: This is a term that applies to how data is
transmitted to/from the SCSI bus. For each byte requested, a REQ
signal is generated, and once the byte has been sent, an ACK
signal is generated. This allows SCSI devices to send/receive
data at the fastest rate possible for each given device. Data
rates up to 3MBytes/sec are allowed for this type of data
transfer. All SCSI devices support this type of operation.
Synchronous: This is similar to asynchronous data transfers,
except the ACK and REQ signals are sent in groups. For instance,
if the offset negotiated for is 7, then the SCSI device will send
seven REQ's and the seven bytes of data and then it will wait for
the 7 ACK's before sending more data. The pulse widths of the
REQ's/ACK's can be very short as there is no need for a ACK for
each REQ. This allows the highest throughput possible for a
SCSI-1 device. Data rates up to 5MBytes/sec are allowed for this
method of data transfer. Not all SCSI devices support this
feature.
Automatic Read/Write Reallocation: SCSI devices give you the
appearance of having no flaws. While in truth there are media
flaws, SCSI devices hide these flaws by keeping a list of
sectors that are not available to you. These sectors are used by
the SCSI device to replace bad sectors. If you have reallocation
turned on, the SCSI device will automatically map out bad sectors
as they are found. This is accomplished in the same manner
during a low-level format. That is how a SCSI device can
maintain the same capacity after many years of use. Degradation
of the capacity will not occur until the device has run
completely out of spares.
Firmware: All SCSI devices have programs that interface with the
SCSI bus and the hardware of a particular SCSI device. This
program is contained in a ROM on the SCSI device and is referred
to as firmware.
Sense Key: This is referring to the main error code that a SCSI
drive will send to the host system. It is a single byte that
represents a number associated with the list of error codes in
the back of your SCSI hard drive installation guide.
Sense Data: This is the data associated with a sense key. This
data further qualifies the error that has occurred on a SCSI
device.
Message System: SCSI uses a message system for initializing the
device as well as action upon reconnecting/disconnecting. This
message system is a well defined set of bytes in the SCSI ANSI
standard.
Check Condition: This data tells the host CPU that an error has
occurred on the previous command and the SCSI device expects the
host to ask for the sense key/data before any further commands
can be sent to the device. Basically, the SCSI device is asking
the host, "Please check my condition?".
Zone: Some SCSI devices have the media split into zones.
Consider zones to be partitions of the SCSI hard drive media.
Each partition may contain a different number of sectors per
track. These partitions also contain spare sectors and tracks.
This keeps the SCSI device from putting all spare sectors and
tracks in one spot on the device.
Identify Message: This message is used when more than one
initiator is on the SCSI bus. It allows multiple initiators to
know which device on the SCSI bus is asking for service from that
initiator. This is usually disabled for SCSI devices as multiple
initiators are not a supported feature.
Prefetch: This term is used in reference to SCSI devices that
have the ability to get data into the local device buffer, that
has not actually been requested. Some SCSI devices have the
ability to do a read ahead, while others have a true cache
mechanism. In both implementations, the device will read more
data into the device buffer than was actually requested. This
helps only when data is requested in a sequential manner, as may
be done in the MS-DOS/OS2 operating environments.
ECC: ECC is a mechanism employed by many types of devices that
allows the device to do error correction on data that has been
misread from the media. This helps to ensure data integrity for
a device. It also adds some overhead.
All SCSI error messages will be displayed at the bottom of the
screen in a window. All other errors will be displayed in the
center of the screen with the appropriate error message.
Unknown: An unknown error has occurred.
Recovered Error: The last command completed successfully with
some recovery action performed by the device.
Not Ready: The device selected is not ready. For a tape drive
it may indicate that the tape is not loaded in the drive. For
another type of removable media device it could indicate that the
device is not up to speed or the media is not loaded.
Media Error: The last command terminated with a non-recovered
error condition that was probably caused by some flaw in the
media.
Hardware Error: The device detected a non-recoverable hardware
failure while performing the command.
Illegal Request: There was an illegal parameter in the command
or in the additional data parameters supplied for the command.
The command will be terminated without altering the device.
Unit Attention: The device has received a hard reset since the
last command has been issued.
Aborted Command: The device has aborted the command. You may
try the command again.
Miscompare: The source data did not match the data read from the
media.
Could not get mode sense data from SCSI device: The device that
has been selected did not return the requested information
related to the main menu choice. This error indicates that
either the mode page selected is not supported by this device or
the device is in such a state that the data cannot be sent.
Test Unit Ready: This is used to test to see if a device is
available.
Request Sense: This command is used to get error codes from a
SCSI device.
Format Unit: This command is used to do a low-level format of
the SCSI device.
Inquiry: This command returns information about a SCSI device.
Such as the manufacturer, firmware level, and so on.
Mode Select: This command returns the tunable information about
a SCSI device so that it may be modified and sent back to the
device via the mode sense command.
Mode Sense: This command is used to send information about a
particular section of tunable parameters to the device.
Start/Stop Unit: This command is used to start a device that has
spun down. It is also used to load a tape when a tape drive is
present in the system.
Read Capacity: This command returns the capacity of a SCSI
device. The capacity is returned in total number of user
accessible blocks on the device.
Read Defect List: This command returns the defect list for a
SCSI hard drive only. Tape drives have no defect list.