CompuServe Thread

Mike, Contrary to my previous observation, the system DOES boot after about 30 seconds if the Konica has no disk inserted. However, it will not boot if the Konica is powered off at boot time. The system simply hangs. I have the Konica connected to the external SCSI port on the A3000 using a standard Mac-type SCSI cable. I have found that the internal drive must have the termination resistpaks installed in order to work correctly, even though the Konica is also terminated. Without termination on the internal drive, the system wouldn't do writes correctly, often hanging, and in one case the drive developed key errors which required reformatting. So far, I have the internal drive terminated and the Konica terminated and it all seems to work correctly except for the boot delay when a diskette isn't in the Konica or the hang if the Konica is powered off. If you have further suggestions, please leave them via EMAIL because I am leaving the country for the next two weeks. Happy Holidays.

Don, To the best of my knowledge and what's revealed in the meager docs on the Konica, it doesn't supply tpwr nor have a jumper to enable/disable it. It does, however, have a termination resistpak. What I found was: a. If the resistpaks on the A3000 drive are removed and the Konica is connected to the SCSI connector on the back of the A3000, then the A3000 develops odd write problems which hang the internal drive. b. If the resistpaks are installed on the internal drive and the resistpak is installed on the Konica, then the system works perfectly. I have found that apparently both the internal and Konica drives must be terminated for the internal drive to work correctly with the Konica connected to the A3000's external SCSI connector (using a standard Mac-type SCSI cable.) However, if the Konica is shut down (power off), then the A3000 won't boot at all. If the Konica is on, but no diskette inserted, then the A3000 will boot after about 30 seconds. If the Konica has a disk inserted at boot time, then the A3000 boots normally. I have set the SCSI timeout to 2 secs to allow the Konica to come to speed before the A3000 starts the boot sequence. I appreciate your help. If you have further suggestions for me, please leave them via EMAIL because I am leaving the country for the next two weeks. Happy Holidays.

Don, Since reading your message, I went back and tried removing the terminator resistpak on the Konica. The result is that the A3000 will now boot if the Konica is turned off, will boot after about 30 seconds if the Konica is on, but no diskette inserted, and will boot immediately if the Konica is on and a diskette is inserted. So this seems to have been the solution, although I cannot understand why it works when the Konica is unterminated while the internal drive IS terminated. I did find a reference in the A3000 doc on page 4-23 which says "… you will need to remove the terminator packs on all but the last external SCSI device in the chain, and all but the last internal SCSI device in the chain." This suggests that indeed the internal drive should remain terminated (it's the only internal drive), but that the single external drive should BE terminated. However, for the A3000 to boot with the Konica powered off, the Konica had to be unterminated. I can only surmise that the Konica might have TPWR without the terminator pack, or takes termination from the internal drive, or supplies active termination. The latter doesn't seem likely since the Konica has a terminator resistpak. Anyway, it now seems to work as it should, other than it takes so long for the A3000 to boot when the Konica is on but has no diskette inserted. Otherwise, read/writes seem to be OK and the system apparently is now working correctly. Thanks for the suggestions.

Bill, No, I haven't tried your suggestions. I currently have left the internal drive at address 6 and the Konica is at address 2 (although it works similarly at addresses of 0, 1, and 3. I guess, I could try reversing the address orders. I had checked through my docs to find out what the boot order is to determine which direction the controller goes. Presently, each drive is set to the SCSI addresses indicated, but the LUN for both drives is 0. I haven't found anything in the docs about whether the LUNs should be set differently for each drive, even though they are both on the same controller. The boot priority for the internal drive is set at 1, while the priority for the Konica is set at 0 (at least on the diskette, though that should make no difference if a diskette isn't inserted.) Please enlighten me further, given what I've told you. Please leave further suggestions via EMAIL because I am leaving the country for two weeks. Happy Holidays.

Bill, This is a possibility since the Konica does implement a SCSI subset, but the docs don't seem to suggest that the Konica supplies TPWR (a suggestion made by Don Curtis.) If this is the case, then perhaps it explains the problem, which, obviously, is unsolvable if it's a peculiarity of the Konica. Right now I have found that unless both the internal drive and the Konica aren't terminated, then the internal drive develops write errors, symptomatic of what happens if a buss isn't properly terminated. The Konica is connected to the A3000 via the external SCSI connector using a Mac-type SCSI cable. Perhaps the nature of the cabling requires the termination of both drives in order to reduce noise and standing waves. I tried removing the resistpaks on the internal drive and leaving the Konica terminated. Although the system worked OK on reads, it didn't work correctly on writes. However, in neither case did this affect the boot problem when the Konica was powered off.