Re: "Invalid Media Format" error

From: John Laird (nospam_at_laird-towers.org.uk)
Date: 06/16/04 

Date: Tue, 15 Jun 2004 23:00:08 +0100

On Tue, 15 Jun 2004 20:18:07 +0000 (UTC), John F
<john@SeeSigForAddress.invalid.com> wrote:

>Got several Seagate ST15150N's (aka RZ29B's) that don't seem
>to want to mount/foreign or initialize, giving "Invalid Media
>Format" for both commands, regardless of switches/attributes
>I try to tack on. The disks are recognized okay using sh dev,
>both before and after boot, and scsi chain tests okay, etc.
>This is all on a DECstation 3000 600 running Alpha VMS 7.3
>booted off an RZ28 on the same chain.
> The only possible clue I noticed is that some ST15150N's
>(from an older batch) that do mount okay report 4.29GB from
>>>> sh dev, whereas these report 4.28GB.
> Google search turned up suggestions like
>init/over=(own,acc,exp), but that gives an error like
>"attribute not appropriate for device type" (override only
>applies to tapes). A few other google suggestions also didn't
>work. Any way to init these disks? I'm happy to clobber any
>data on them. Thanks,

Sounds like you've got some without the necessary Seagate firmware patch to
make them work properly. I think these were early Barracudas which claimed
to support tagged-command-queueing, but, well didn't all that well. (Vague
memory recollection that the tag was defined as a byte, and Seagate decided
0-63 was enough.) I have one myself - works just fine on 6.2 (Vax) but
needed a patch for the Alpha dkdriver (also 6.2 iirc) and an eco update on
said driver first. I tried up to 7.2 at the time and nothing would touch
it. The drive dropped offline all the time.

My mail from the time got fritzed, but I think it was Glenn Everhart who
guided me on how to patch the driver. I simply disabled TCQ on any generic
scsi disk. Stick this message-id into an advanced Google Groups search for
more info: <39F19109.676BCE9A@GCE.com>

(Actually, looking at my notes, I did find a few typos in Glenn's post...) 

-- 
Do the impossible and your boss will add it to your duties. 
Mail john rather than nospam...

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