Sun MGA 9000 HD setup & software..

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Bob Courtemanche - 27 Aug 2005 06:10 GMT

Anybody know what "fixed disk" number ( 1 - 47) to use in the BIOS setup
for this machine? Both hard drives are Quantum ProDrive 40S, a 40 MB
SCSI drive, 42 MB formatted.

Anybody have the software for this machine? Any state would do, I just
need the gas analyzer and other diagnostic functions.

Thanks,

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Ryan Underwood - 27 Aug 2005 20:29 GMT

>Anybody know what "fixed disk" number ( 1 - 47) to use in the BIOS setup
>for this machine? Both hard drives are Quantum ProDrive 40S, a 40 MB
>SCSI drive, 42 MB formatted.

If it's a SCSI disk, the PC BIOS isn't going to handle it. That is only for AT
interface or IDE drives. Is the SCSI controller onboard or on a separate card?
If it's in a separate card, it will have its own setup program accessed at boot
time or through debug. Then the SCSI BIOS takes over the disk services
rendering any setting in the BIOS moot. If the SCSI controller is onboard,
things could be very strange indeed.

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Bob Courtemanche - 28 Aug 2005 00:16 GMT

> >Anybody know what "fixed disk" number ( 1 - 47) to use in the BIOS setup
> >for this machine? Both hard drives are Quantum ProDrive 40S, a 40 MB
[quoted text clipped - 9 lines]
> rendering any setting in the BIOS moot. If the SCSI controller is onboard,
> things could be very strange indeed.

I thought it was odd, also.

Both drives are SCSI drives. The drives are attached in the middle of a
50 pin SCSI cable which is attached to the CD ROM at one end (with
terminator) and the Sun System Storage board at the other. The Sun board
is labeled as having a SCSI BIOS on it.

This machine has a switch to boot either the PC (286 processor) or the
smog analyzer. Either way I boot, I get the message:

"ROM Basic (int 18H) is not supported
Disk Error, insert system disk
and press any key to continue"

I tried making a system disk by copying all the DOS files from one of
the hard drives onto a floppy. No luck. I also tried making a system
disk on my PC (windows 95), no luck.

The drive containing what looks like the PC software has a SCSI ID 2,
and the drive containing what looks like the State software is SCSI ID
4. The CD ROM has SCSI ID 1. I'm able to access the software on both
hard drives with my PC, which has a SCSI card. I can change the SCSI IDs
on the hard drives to 0, 1, 2 or 4 with a jumper on the hard drive.

During startup, I don't see any reference to a SCSI BIOS like I do on my
PC. The clock battery is dead (this unit sat unplugged for over a year),
so I wonder if the BIOS somehow lost the SCSI part?

You mentioned debug, how do I access that?

Any clues?

Thanks,

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Bob Courtemanche

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Ryan Underwood - 28 Aug 2005 02:02 GMT

>Both drives are SCSI drives. The drives are attached in the middle of a
>50 pin SCSI cable which is attached to the CD ROM at one end (with
>terminator) and the Sun System Storage board at the other. The Sun board
>is labeled as having a SCSI BIOS on it.

>This machine has a switch to boot either the PC (286 processor) or the
>smog analyzer. Either way I boot, I get the message:

>"ROM Basic (int 18H) is not supported
>Disk Error, insert system disk
>and press any key to continue"

This would be normal behavior if the boot sector of the hard disk is unreadable
for some reason. The IBM PC fell back into BASIC when it could not boot, but
newer systems don't contain BASIC in ROM.

>I tried making a system disk by copying all the DOS files from one of
>the hard drives onto a floppy. No luck. I also tried making a system
>disk on my PC (windows 95), no luck.

Does it attempt to boot from the floppy drive at all? What version of DOS is
on the hard drive? (provide a directory listing if possible) Not only the
boot/system files are required, but a boot sector which points to the kernel
file (on MS-DOS, the kernel is IO.SYS; IBM DOS is IBMDOS.COM; etc). With
MS-DOS that boot sector is constructed, and the system files copied, using the
SYS utility. Things could be interesting if there is a very old or custom DOS
on there.

>During startup, I don't see any reference to a SCSI BIOS like I do on my
>PC. The clock battery is dead (this unit sat unplugged for over a year),
>so I wonder if the BIOS somehow lost the SCSI part?

Yeah, that is strange. I guess it is some kind of "silent" BIOS, or maybe it
has become corrupted and fails a checksum. Do you have a prom reader with
which you could dump the BIOS? What chips are on the SCSI controller?

And there is also the possibility that the SCSI card is storing its setup
values in the system CMOS instead of in NVRAM on the card itself, if this card
was specifically made for this system. That would be fun.

>You mentioned debug, how do I access that?

DOS boot disk, debug.com. You would have to find out where the SCSI BIOS is
mapped in memory using something like MSD or Manifest (it would be listed as an
"Expansion ROM". Then you instruct debug to jump to its initialization
routine, which lives within the SCSI BIOS segment at a particular offset. For
example, if the BIOS is mapped at C800h, you can do:
-g=c800:5

That would jump to segment c800, offset 5. The correct offset depends on the
code of the specific BIOS, so you could try 1 through f and see which one if
any will work. A wrong segment or offset will hang the machine. This is a
long shot because I honestly have no idea how your SCSI card is meant to be
configured. Many older SCSI and ST506 controller cards were configured in this
manner, as opposed to having a character-mode GUI accessible when the BIOS
invokes option ROMs like all newer SCSI and ATA cards do.

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