[Coco] Ken-Ton Update

[John E. Malmberg]

Chris Spry wrote:
> I got it to detect several hard drives, but on most of them I get
> rather IO or WP errors when trying to dskini any of the drive.  I
> only got one other to work right (and it is a 1GB SCSI drive no
> less).  Anybody have any kind of answer to this?

There are many SCSI mode page parameters, and what they are set for 
depends on what the original vendor of the system that the drive went in 
was used for.

Some device drivers know how to change the parameters or work around the 
settings.  Other more minimal drivers require a utility to set those 
parameters.

Most of the drives used 512 byte sectors, some did not and used other 
sizes.  If the sector size is wrong, then you will not be able to read 
or write to the drive until it is reformatted.

In addition the mode pages will control what steps are needed to make 
the drive usable after a power up condition.

Some SCSI drives, particularly the older smaller ones did not comply 
with the SCSI specications, so the device drivers had to compensate for 
this either by knowing the specific models that are broken, or doing 
tests to determine it.

It has gotten much better than it was, but unless all hardware / 
software vendors involved have qualified a configuration, there is a 
good chance that it will not work.

Neither S in SCSI is for "Standard".

-John
wb8tyw at qsl.net
Personal Opinion Only