imaging an SCSI hard drive.

[6885P5H]

Hello. I'd like to create an image of a Quantum ProDrive 40 S (the S is for SCSI). I have never dealt with SCSI before. I have an 8-bit ISA controller called a Corel LS-2000, or LS2000. More info: REV C, built in 1992, 1.65 BIOS. It's a relatively simple card. Other than the BIOS, NCR 53C400 controller and 2 LEDs, one orange and the other green, there isn't much on there. Does someone know what the LEDs are for?

I've tried it in two computers, an IBM XT and an IBM PC 750. In the XT, the computer appears to hang when the card tries to detect the drive. Maybe there's a conflict with another card or the computer isn't configured properly.

In the PC 750, the card seems to work when the drive is alone (I can read it with Norton Utilities Disk Editor) but when I add an IDE drive it gets really angry. The BIOS gets stuck in a loop telling me configuration has changed and error code 1780 or 1782. Exiting the setup screen without saving allows it to boot, but it ignores the SCSI drive, or ignores the IDE drive, or it acts in a strange way, or it ignores both.

More info: Both LEDs light up no matter what the configuration is. When the drive is read both faintly blink at the same time. The cable I'm using is really short and only has 1 connector.
Configuration of the card: "Power Source for the Network Terminators" is +5V. One Wait State enabled. BIOS enabled. SCSI Bus Power enabled. All 3 SCSI Terminators are installed.

Usually I'd do more tests before asking here, but you understand that I'm not too enthusiastic about power-cycling a 30 years old hard drive for hours, and I know nothing about SCSI. So I'd prefer to have someone with SCSI knowledge guide me to the right path.

 

[Stone]

What's on the drive that you need to image it?

 

[6885P5H]

I haven't looked at everything that's on it but there's a French installation of Mac OS with French Mac programs, some of that stuff could be really rare. As far as personal files go there seemed to be some essays, I remember seeing files labeled "Mexico" and "The Olmecs". That's another reason I want to image it, archaelogy. Finding out what the computer was used for and when it was used for the last time (1998?). Third reason is that with an image perhaps it would be possible to play around with the OS in an emulator, instead of using an old computer that's currently getting its circuits dissolved by acid from the capacitors.

 

[SomeGuy]

It sounds to me like this card just does not get along well with other drive systems. I've encountered that before with ISA SCSI cards.

Hanging while detecting the drive may indicate that the BIOS requires at least an NEC V20, not a plain 8088. Although it is 8-bit, it may have been a budget-cost card intended for use in 286/386 systems.

Normally when I dump a SCSI drive, I use a PCI era machine with an Adaptec AHA-2940U, boot Linux, and then just "dd" the contents out.

If you can find a machine combination that works, just using Norton Disk Editor to select all physical sectors, and then saving it to a file on a different drive should work also.

Since this is a Mac drive, once it is dumped you should just be able to mount the image in an emulator such as VMac Mini, or Basilisk II.

 

[Chuck(G)]

I've even had success with the MA-358 parallel-to-scsi adapter on PCs. 8-bit ISA SCSI adapters can get to be very twitchy. I've had good luck with the Trantor T-130, however. Copy using ASPI drivers and ASPI imaging software.

Or just boot Linux and use dd.

 

[Stone]

I haven't looked at everything that's on it but there's a French installation of Mac OS with French Mac programs, some of that stuff could be really rare.

I've tried it in two computers, an IBM XT and an IBM PC 750. In the XT, the computer appears to hang when the card tries to detect the drive. Maybe there's a conflict with another card or the computer isn't configured properly.

Maybe the IBM XT can't boot MAC OS?

 

[6885P5H]

In the small installation guide it says to set the drive ID to 1 if used in conjunction with an ST-506 or ESDI drive. Maybe what it does not get along with is IDE.

Can you tell me why the card has a jumper to disable the BIOS? Is it in case the computer already has SCSI support? Why then would you use the expansion card? Huhmm....

Tell me if I am correct. A RAID controller cannot be used to image an SCSI drive, right?

What do you think about this one? https://www.ebay.ca/itm/202921074147 Looks pretty crummy though.

Ok, can you guys tell me what the deal is with items on ebay from obscure/far-away countries having extremely cheap or free shipping? There are a bunch of SCSI controllers on ebay that come from Israel or Lithuania and they are cheaper than if they were next province.

 

[SomeGuy]

Can you tell me why the card has a jumper to disable the BIOS? Is it in case the computer already has SCSI support? Why then would you use the expansion card?

If the card is intended to be used with a non-DOS accessible device, like a scanner, then the BIOS is not needed. In such a case, disabling BIOS reduces the probability of conflicts, and frees up some upper memory block space. In this configuration, the vendor's drivers must be installed to use the card.

Tell me if I am correct. A RAID controller cannot be used to image an SCSI drive, right?

Depends. A SCSI RAID controller should be able to access a single drive. But I would expect configuration to be a headache, and it might not like small, older drives like that one.

What do you think about this one? https://www.ebay.ca/itm/202921074147 Looks pretty crummy though.

If it has the 50 pin header, then it should work. Just check to make sure the model is supported under whichever OS you plan to use with it.

Ok, can you guys tell me what the deal is with items on ebay from obscure/far-away countries having extremely cheap or free shipping? There are a bunch of SCSI controllers on ebay that come from Israel or Lithuania and they are cheaper than if they were next province.

I'm still trying to figure that out.

 

[Eudimorphodon]

I've tried it in two computers, an IBM XT and an IBM PC 750. In the XT, the computer appears to hang when the card tries to detect the drive. Maybe there's a conflict with another card or the computer isn't configured properly.

I would definitely suggest checking the IRQ and BIOS addresses for the card if the XT has a normal XT hard drive controller in it, there could be a conflict with either. If it hangs with no other hard drive controller in it then it's possible it hangs because it gets confused by the Macintosh partitioning on the drive, although if you're talking about some kind of BIOS message that enumerates all the drives the controller sees before attempting an actual boot I wouldn't think that would be the case. (For example, I've found that the XTIDE BIOS on the expansion card in my Tandy 1000 can hang hard if there's a non-DOS-compatible boot label on a disk. But that's after the drive detection loop that displays what drives it finds attached.)

In the PC 750, the card seems to work when the drive is alone (I can read it with Norton Utilities Disk Editor) but when I add an IDE drive it gets really angry. The BIOS gets stuck in a loop telling me configuration has changed and error code 1780 or 1782. Exiting the setup screen without saving allows it to boot, but it ignores the SCSI drive, or ignores the IDE drive, or it acts in a strange way, or it ignores both.

I would suggest disabling the card's BIOS and seeing if you can get the drive recognized by loading the DOS drivers after booting from IDE disk. The "PC 750" is a Pentium class machine according to a Google? It's possible there's something about the BIOS extension that conflicts with the native IDE driver when you actually try to use the latter.

 

[bakemono]

If you are able to boot and see the SCSI disk without an IDE (booted from floppy??) then maybe you can setup a connection using INTERLNK and transfer all the data to another computer that way.

Or disable the card BIOS and then boot Win9x and try to access the SCSI from within Windows. I might have drivers for that NCR controller around somewhere if you need them.

 

[WBST]

Hello. I'd like to create an image of a Quantum ProDrive 40 S (the S is for SCSI). I have never dealt with SCSI before. I have an 8-bit ISA controller called a Corel LS-2000, or LS2000. More info: REV C, built in 1992, 1.65 BIOS. It's a relatively simple card. Other than the BIOS, NCR 53C400 controller and 2 LEDs, one orange and the other green, there isn't much on there. Does someone know what the LEDs are for?

I've tried it in two computers, an IBM XT and an IBM PC 750. In the XT, the computer appears to hang when the card tries to detect the drive. Maybe there's a conflict with another card or the computer isn't configured properly.

In the PC 750, the card seems to work when the drive is alone (I can read it with Norton Utilities Disk Editor) but when I add an IDE drive it gets really angry. The BIOS gets stuck in a loop telling me configuration has changed and error code 1780 or 1782. Exiting the setup screen without saving allows it to boot, but it ignores the SCSI drive, or ignores the IDE drive, or it acts in a strange way, or it ignores both.

More info: Both LEDs light up no matter what the configuration is. When the drive is read both faintly blink at the same time. The cable I'm using is really short and only has 1 connector.
Configuration of the card: "Power Source for the Network Terminators" is +5V. One Wait State enabled. BIOS enabled. SCSI Bus Power enabled. All 3 SCSI Terminators are installed.

Usually I'd do more tests before asking here, but you understand that I'm not too enthusiastic about power-cycling a 30 years old hard drive for hours, and I know nothing about SCSI. So I'd prefer to have someone with SCSI knowledge guide me to the right path.

Generally speaking, when configuring multiple types of HD controllers in an IBM BIOS system you need to set the BIOS ROM addresses in ascending order of ESDI, IDE, SCSI. The ROM scan initialises them in the order or ascending address, *but* if the Int 13h hooking of the ROM doesn't chain the interrupt according to IBM's rules and chain block format, the results can be unpredictable.

HTTH