Re: Anyone seen this before?

Steve M. Fabac, Jr. wrote:
I have a client running SCO 5.0.5 Host on a Compaq Prosignia 740
system where I replaced the single hard disk on the cha controller
with an Adaptec 2110S RAID controller and a pair of disks (RAID1).

The system has been running fine since the installation of the 2110S
in August 2004.

Last week I talked the client into replacing his Cypher QIC tape
drive and home brewed cpio backup with a DVD writer and Microlite
BackupEdge 2.2.

I had some initial problem with getting Backup Edge to properly
recognize the DVD drive. But working with Microlite tech support,
we identified an SCO tech article TA105353 that addresses SCSI underrun
errors with the Compaq cha driver. Once the changes specified in
the article were applied to the SCSI ID assigned to the DVD (the
IDE dvd drive is connected with an AEC 7720U SCSI to IDE adapter),
Backup Edge was able to auto detect the drive and subsequently
backup and verify using DVD-RAM media.

Now the problem: When testing the RE2 disaster recovery CD boot
image, I noted that the RAID1 hard disks spin down between operations
when booting and performing operations from the RE2 media.

Example: Going to the shell prompt and executing "mount /dev/hd0root /mnt"
results in the disks spinning up, root is mounted, and then the
disks spin down.

Subsequently, issuing the command "umount /dev/hd0root" is slow to
execute as the disks spin up, hd0root is unmounted, and then the
disks spin down. When I exited RE2 (to reboot the machine), the RAID
controller message "flushing: 0 1 2.... etc." which normally appears
when haltsys or shutdown is executed from the live system, is delayed
as the controller waits for the disks to spin back up.

I have never seen this before with Backup Edge RE2 media.

When I sent an inquiry to Microlite tech support, the response was:

I don’t think this is RecoverEDGE related to be honest. We have no code to control the hard drive outside of configuring, mounting, and writing to it.

It sounds like some type of BIOS setting. However, I will pass this over to our engineers to see if they have an opinion.

But since SCO 5.0.5 is obsolete product and Microlite does not list
it as supported with BE 2.2, I don't expect any further testing from
Microlite.

I am posting this to the NG in the hope that someone had seen this before
(disks spinning down) on the Adaptec 2110 controller when cdrom or emergency
boot floppy has been booted and can direct me to the appropriate setting
to change this behavior.


Hi, Steve.

FYI 5.0.5 IS listed as supported by 02.02.00 by Microlite.

That said - it very much looks like an overly aggressive power saving/management setting in the BIOS, either the main BIOS or the RAID BIOS - most likely the main BIOS.

Look for things like a setting that asks if the OS supports power management - make that No, as it probably assumes Windows style power management.

Turn off anything that touches on power management, examine closely any setting that touches on hard drives.

As a last try, remove 02.02.00 and install either a back rev 02.01.xx or the just released 02.03.00 on the low chance that some interaction with 02.02.00 is exacerbating the spin down.

Good luck. Messing with old stuff is so much fun ... :|

--
----------------------------------------------------
Pat Welch, UBB Computer Services, a WCS Affiliate
SCO Authorized Partner
Microlite BackupEdge Certified Reseller
Unix/Linux/Windows/Hardware Sales/Support
(209) 745-1401 Cell: (209) 251-9120
E-mail: patubb@xxxxxxxxxxx
----------------------------------------------------
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