Re: "Invalid Media Format" error

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Date: Wed, 16 Jun 2004 11:58:38 +0000 (UTC)

John Laird <nospam@laird-towers.org.uk> wrote:
: 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...)
: Mail john rather than nospam...

Thanks very much for explanation, John. At least now I know what's
wrong ( a netbsd guy describes the same problem and similar fix at
http://mail-index.netbsd.org/netbsd-bugs/2001/08/29/0003.html ), and
even how to fix it. But I do wish Everhart had taken Dachtera's
follow-up suggestion and automated the procedure. If your notes
documenting typos are in machine-readable form, could I trouble you
once again to post them? I think I can pretty much follow Glenn's
outlined procedure, but I won't know what I'm doing. Thanks again,

-- 
John Forkosh  ( mailto:  j@f.com  where j=john and f=forkosh )

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