Conference giadev::decstation

    re: ODIXIE::SIMPSONT
    
    What were the autodetected drive settings on the so-called working PCs?
    Or were they set to a fixed hard disk type and work with a BIOS overlay
    supplied by Maxtor?  If the latter, do the same on the DIGITAL PCs.  If
    not, I have no idea.
    
    /Bill

    re: big disks:
    
    I shudder to think what's going to happen when somebody tries to stuff
    a 9.x GB disk into a PC. BIOS meltdown...
    
    Man was never meant to fly! Big disks were never meant for PCs! mumble
    mumble mumble...

Tom,

I'm quite certain that this drive is not supported....
I don't mean it to sound like a way out but, you may just have to tell the
customer
........ sorry...no can do....


Steve
[Posted by WWW Notes gateway]

    I'll call the customer today and try to get some additional
    information.  It's not easy to tell your customer that the DEC PCs that
    the won't cut it, when everyone else seemingly can...  This could wreak
    havoc with the $250K PC order that they are ready to submit March 1st.
    
    We have hundreds of these PCs deployed at dozens of sites world-wide. 
    This project with large disks is the next phase of their application
    development.
    
    re: .-1 Easy for you to say... Maybe you could make that phone call for 
    me...?
    
    I hate PCs...
    
    Thanks for the responses!
    
    Tom

    Its probably because when the BIOS was released that the largest IDE
    drivers were about 2-3GB and the BIOS will only "see" drives of that
    size (the other non-digital PCs may have set their parameters to
    account for larger drives). 
    
    You can open an IPMT case to get the problem into engineering support
    and we can see if there are any fixes that can be done to the BIOS to
    support larger disks.
    
    If you do open a case, provide as much detailed information on the
    customer and configuration (existing drives by make and type) as 
    possible (ie. how many systems, types of systems, customer 
    requirements, etc.).
    
    regards,
    
    glen kelley
    pcbu support engineering

    Update:
    
    Both systems seem to Auto Type the disk geometry correctly.  The
    calculated disk size after the the BIOS has detected the disk geometry
    for both drives is 826MB.
    
    4095 is the largest cyl value allowed for the Celebris, 6347 for the
    for the Venturis (manually setting configurations).  If you try to
    enter 6348 cyl for the Venturis, the Setup program locks up...
    
    The Celebris PC won't boot.  The Venturis PC will boot, but only sees
    3.2gb of the disk (6347 cyl).
    
    Am I going to have the same problem on the Venturis FX 5133???
    
    BTW:  How do you open an IPMT case?
    
    Regards,
    Tom

    
    From the node, you are in Atlanta/Alpharetta.
    
    The folks at the CSC can help with the IPMT case.
    
    chet

    I've asked the enigneering folks about this and I should have an answer
    sometime this week (Feb 17th). As to the IPMT, have your local MCS
    folkd open a call (if this is a customer situation, that should count
    as a reason).
    
    As for the Venturis FX, I'll ask. Again, I don't know if they tested
    disks that large (what to loan me yours for testing? :>).
    
    regards, 
    
    glen

    Actually, I was going to ask the customer to loan me their disk for
    testing...  They have the new disk and the Celebris/Venturis 590s, I
    have the Venturis FX in our lab in Orlando FL.  My customer is in Fort
    Leavenworth KS...
    
    I called the 800 354-9000 number and asked for PC help.  They sent me
    to another number that had Celebris/Venturis "specialists". (800
    554-3333).  I asked the specialist about opening a IPMT case and he did
    not know what I was talking about... FWIW Ref# C970217-725  His
    suggestion was to reformat the disk on the Celebris and see if that
    fixes it.  Since today is a Government holiday, I have to wait till
    tomorrow.  It really sounds to me like the BIOS is the problem.  I
    doubt that reformatting will help, but I'm not too proud to try it.
    
    I'll call the local MCS folks and ask about the IPMT.
    
    Thanks!
    
    Regards,
    Tom
    
    

I'm pretty sure that 800-554-3333 gets you to non-Digital people contracted
to provide support, and the word from customers is that they're rather
clueless.

				Steve

Tom,

All you have to do is log a service call with MCS. Explain the situation to 
Technical support and they will escalate to Regional Support who in turn raise
an IPMT case. You maybe able to talk to region before this happens so they are
aware of the history and speed up the process. Also, guide them to this notes
conference.

Hope this helps

Steve Kaniowski
Regional support
[Posted by WWW Notes gateway]

    Well, I escalated the call and the final answer is, sorry - not
    supported.
    
    Does anyone know if the problem is strictly a BIOS issue or is there a
    problem with the CMD chip set too?
    
    Pretty sad considering that the customer has several 3 year old no-name
    486-33 PCs (with AMI BIOS) that support it just fine.  Really makes us 
    look bad...  I think it says ALOT about our choice of BIOS vendors.
    
    Now to break the news to my customer...
    
    I REALLY hate PCs...
    
    Thanks for all the help.
    
    Regards,
    Tom
    

    > I HATE PCs...
    
    
    I think we oughta start a note:
    
    "WHY I HATE PCs"
    
    or 
    
    "Why is a PC better than your spousal unit or 
     [gender-specific-label] friend?"
    
    
    

    Tom,
    
    I've asked engineering to look at this and see if there is a quick fix.
    If there is, I'll let you know.
    
    regards,
    
    glen kelley

    Glenn,
    
    Thanks!  I really appreciate the help.  Apparently the customer is also
    talking to PCBU support directly.  I think one reason that the customer
    is pushing the issue is because he would like to see if Digital will
    "do the right thing" by their customers and provide the necessary support.
    This, of course, will influence their future buying decisions.
    
    The customer could easily work around this problem by using an add-in
    EIDE adapter (which I have already suggested to them).  They are pretty 
    cheap until you consider that you will have to retrofit 400-500 PCs in 
    15 states and 3 different countries...
    
    The Disk Manager that comes with the drive allows the disk to be used
    with the Venturis PC ok, but apparently not the Celebris.  They are trying
    to find a solution that is low cost (no cost?) and minimizes their
    configuration management problems.  They would prefer not to use the
    Disk Manager program because it uses memory resources and is one more
    piece of software that has to be installed and tracked...
    
    Regards,
    Tom
    

    re: .15 by ODIXIE::SIMPSONT
    
    I'm sure we'll "do the right thing" if we can...
    
    Just a few side comments if _I_ were the customer.  _I_ would be
    perfectly happy with getting 3.2GB for the time being until I upgraded
    the system boxes sometime in the future.  Let's face it, 3.2GB is a LOT
    of space, and these disks are getting very cheap.  What kind of backup
    scheme has the customer set up for archiving their valuable data?  Or
    is the data throw-away?  I would be more concerned with that than
    temporarily losing a couple of GB (which may or may not be used anytime
    soon).
    
    These were straight, original Celebris and Venturis, correct?  If my
    memory does not fail me, the EIDE controller chips are different
    between the two (VLSI Technologies vs. SIS, respectively).  I have a
    haunting suspicion that bios tweaking will not fix the problem.  Still,
    I may be jumping the gun.  Maybe we'll get lucky and a bios fix will be
    found.
    
    Good luck to us all and keep the faith.
    
    /Bill

    
    Bill,
    
    Good observations in general, however, in this application the disk is
    replacing laser video disks that contain map data.  The data does not
    change except when they have to load a new map area.  The data consumes
    more than 3.2GB of disk space, so _they_ aren't satisfied...
    
    The PC application runs perfectly fine on an 8mb, 90mHz pentium,
    WFW OS.  In fact, it really does not need that much power!  The systems
    are used for nothing else other than this application  The PCs are simply 
    graphics display devices that display what the MicroVAX tells it to, so 
    no PC upgrades are anticipated in the near future.  These PCs were 
    "upgrades" from Commodore AMIGA PCs... 
    
    Regards,
    Tom
    

    I found an interesting article related to EIDE/big disk/DEC/CMD chip
    sets, etc...especially if you are considering purchasing a big EIDE
    disk drive for an older system!
    
    This may be the real reason why trying to get BIOS support for big disks 
    is a problem...
    
    =======================================
    
    PCI EIDE Controller Flaws Discovered
    
    
    BY ROEDY GREEN 
    
    
    Introduction
    
    There are serious flaws affecting about one-third of all PCI
    motherboards. The flaws affect any motherboard or EIDE controller
    paddleboard containing the PC-Tech RZ-1000 PCI EIDE controller chip or
    the CMD PCIO 640 PCI EIDE controller chip.
    
    The flaws affect motherboards from ASUSTeK, AT&T, DEC, Dell, Gateway,
    Intel, Micron, NEC, Zeos and others. Since Intel makes so many of the
    motherboards sold under other brand names, the flaws affect many
    machines, both 486 and Pentium PCI.
    
    The flaws show up most frequently when you run a true multitasking
    operating system such as OS/2 Warp or NT. They also show up under
    Windows For WorkGroups in 32-bit mode during tape or floppy backup and
    restore. In theory, the flaws could do damage under DOS, DESQview,
    Windows and Windows For WorkGroups in 16-bit mode, but so far there
    have been no damage reports. Windows-95 contains code to bypass the
    flaws.
    
    The RZ-1000 has two flaws. The CMD-640 has those same two flaws, plus
    three others. To make matters worse, most motherboard manufacturers
    using these two flawed chips connected them up incorrectly. There are
    software bypasses for these flaws. However, the Warp fix for the
    CMD-640 reduces performance by 50 percent.
    
    What are the symptoms? 
    
    When you are using an IDE or EIDE hard disk attached to the EIDE
    motherboard port, the flaws subtly corrupt your files by randomly
    changing bytes every once in a while. The flaws introduce bugs into EXE
    files, subtle errors into your spreadsheets, stray characters into your
    word processing documents, changes to the deductions in last year's tax
    return files, and random changes to engineering design files.
    
    This corruption happens when you are simultaneously using your EIDE or
    IDE hard disk and some other device, most commonly the floppy drive or
    mag tape backup. The same sort of problem may occur on reading a CD-ROM
    drive attached to an EIDE port.
    
    Unfortunately, correcting the problem just stops further file
    corruption. It will not help to clean up the existing damage to your
    files. Right now, the focus is on bypassing the flaws. Preventing
    further corruption is child's play compared with the nightmare of
    trying to track down all the existing random errors in files. Backups,
    even from day one, may be corrupt. If you have either of the flawed
    chips, you will probably never be able to completely eliminate the
    effects of past corruption.
    
    
    Testing For The Flaws 
    
    I wrote two test programs that run under DESQview, Windows, Windows For
    WorkGroups, Windows 95, NT and OS/2. EIDEtest verifies that your hard
    disk is working properly, and CDtest verifies your CD-ROM. If these
    tests fail, it proves you have a serious problem, but not necessarily
    that you have the RZ-1000 or CMD-640 chip.
    
    If the tests pass, you still may have a problem since, especially under
    DOS, DESQview and Windows, the flaws may only show up rarely. If you
    run the tests under Windows 95 they will always pass, even if you have
    the defective chip, because the operating system already bypasses the
    flaws.
    
    What Can You Do If You Have A Flaw? 
    
    Pester the manufacturer. Unfortunately, the EIDE controller chips are
    soldered in. The only way to repair a flaw is to replace the whole
    motherboard, recycling the socketed chips: the CPU, DRAM and SRAM
    cache. It would be very expensive for computer and motherboard
    manufacturers to fix a flaw.
    
    Buy a new, unpopulated Triton PCI motherboard and recycle the CPU, DRAM
    and SRAM cache chips from the old motherboard.
    
    Run the controller in degraded mode. Some BIOSes have a feature to
    disable the EIDE prefetch buffer. Vendors may offer a BIOS upgrade to
    allow you to manually disable prefetch. The BIOS may also turn it off
    automatically if either of the defective chips is present. This will
    bypass both RZ-1000 flaws and two of the five CMD-640 flaws.
    
    Buy a PCI EIDE paddleboard controller, such as the Promise 2300+ or the
    BusLogic BT-910, to replace the one on the motherboard. You must
    disable the EIDE controller on the motherboard. This fix will waste one
    of your precious slots. Be careful. You could be leaping out of the
    RZ-1000 frying pan into the CMD-640 fire, since paddleboards often use
    the CMD-640.
    
    Buy a SCSI hard disk and CD-ROM, and avoid using the EIDE ports
    entirely. Under OS/2 and Linux, SCSI gives better performance, but
    costs more. DOS, Windows, Windows For WorkGroups and Windows 95 are
    unable to exploit the advanced features of SCSI, but at least avoid the
    EIDE flaws when you go to pure SCSI.
    
    Find a software work-around. There are fixes for Warp to bypass all the
    flaws in the RZ-1000 and CMD-640. Fixpack 5 and pre-release Fixpack 9
    do not bypass the flaws. Now that Intel and IBM have revealed the
    technical details, all the operating system writers can patch their
    EIDE drivers to bypass the flaws. There are also fixes for NT 3.1 and
    3.5.
    
    Get a BIOS upgrade. For DOS, DESQview, and Windows 3.1, to bypass the
    flaws you may need a new BIOS: an EPROM chip. If you have a flash BIOS,
    you can update it simply by downloading a file. Most BIOSes already
    have code to bypass the flaws for DOS, DESQview and Windows. However,
    more advanced operating systems bypass the BIOS, so even a smart BIOS
    will not protect you. However, the BIOS CMOS settings may allow you to
    disable prefetch, which also protects you in even true multitasking
    operating systems.
    
    
    Cut the trace. Cut the trace on the motherboard from the floppy
    changeline to the EIDE controller. However, this only bypasses one of
    the CMD-640's five flaws and one of the RZ-1000's two flaws.
    
    Whatever method you use to bypass the flaws, retest with EIDEtest and
    CDTest afterwards to be sure your fix worked and you caught all the
    problems.
    
    Cleaning Up The Mess 
    
    Once you have bypassed the flaws, you can start working on the problem
    of cleaning up your files.
    
    The first thing to do is to re-install your operating system and all
    your application programs. This will replace any damaged EXE and DLL
    files.
    
    Catching errors in your data files is more difficult. Keep your eyes
    peeled for any improbable spreadsheet results. You may have to hire a
    programmer to write you some comb programs to sniff through your
    databases, looking for suspicious values.
    
    If you routinely use the verify feature of Lotus Magellan, it can
    detect changes to files that should not have changed. This may help you
    uncover some of the damage. The flaws are not polite enough to redate
    the files they corrupt. :-)
    
    If you have backups from before the time you bought the faulty machine,
    you can restore them and re-key everything.
    
    Most people will not be so fortunate. All their backups will also be
    corrupt.
    
    Most people with flaws will just have to put up with random errors
    dotting their data files ever after.
    
    What Are the Flaws? 
    
    IBM confirmed the RZ-100 has two different flaws:
    
    In prefetch mode, multi-sector reads often fail.
    
    The chip erroneously responds to floppy status commands and corrupts
    the hard disk or CD-ROM I/O in the process.
    
    IBM confirmed the CMD-640 has five different flaws. It has the same
    prefetch problem as the RZ-1000. It has the same floppy status problem
    as the RZ-1000. It does not support simultaneous I/O on the primary and
    secondary EIDE ports. There is confusion over legacy and PCI mode.
    Finally, it does not support 32-bit writes.
    
    Test Programs 
    
    When requesting files on the Internet,you must generally use lower
    case.
    
    Below are the addresses for Roedy Green's EIDEtest and CDTest programs
    for DOS, DESQview, Windows, Windows For WorkGroups, Windows 95, NT,
    OS/2 and Warp. By the time you read this newer version, I will likely
    have posted newer versions. 
    
    ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/diskutil/
    
    ftp://ftp.cdrom.com/.4/os2/incoming/eidete16.zip
    
    Intel's RZ-1000 chip detect program:
    
    http://www.intel.com/procs/support/rz1000/rztest.exe
    
    Intel's CMD-640 and RZ-1000 chip detect program, coming soon:
    
    http://www.intel.com/procs/support/ctrltest/
    
    IOTest from PowerQuest, the makers of Partition Magic, a Warp test for
    the flaws.
    
    http://www.powerquest.com/download/iotest.zip
    
    Fixes
    
    Warp bypass for the RZ-1000 chip flaws:
    
    ftp://service.boulder.ibm.com/ps/products/os2/fixes/v3.0warp/english-us/pj19409/pj19409.zip
    
    Warp bypass for the CMD-640 chip flaws:
    
    ftp://ftpos2.cdrom.com/pub/os2/drivers/cmd640x.zip
    
    Microsoft Windows NT 3.1 ATDISK.SYS fix for the CMD-640 chip:
    
    http://www.microsoft.com/KB/softlib/mslfiles/pciatdsk.exe
    
    Microsoft Windows NT 3.5 fix for the CMD-640 chip:
    
    CMD's BBS at (714) 454-1134. 
    File 640XNT35.ZIP 
    
    Essays
    
    Roedy Green's FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) a 19-page unabridged
    version of this article. 
    
    ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/diskutil/eidete16.zip
    ftp://ftp.cdrom.com/.4/os2/incoming/eidete16.zip
    
    PowerQuest essay:
    
    http://www.powerquest.com/
    
    Intel's FAQ
    
    http://www.intel.com/procs/support/rz1000
    
    PC-Tech's essay:
    
    http://www.mei.micron.com/rz1000/rz1000.txt
    
    Catch Pat Duffy's ([email protected]) essays each Sunday in:
    
    comp.os.os2.misc, comp.os.os2.setup.misc, comp.os.os2.setup.storage and
    comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.misc 
    
    Check out Pat Duffy's Web site at: 
    
    http://warp.eecs.berkeley.edu/os2/workbench/work.htm
    ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/ab/abe/
    
    Roedy Green is a computer consultant who prefers to work on Forth, C++,
    Delphi, DOS, OS/2 and Internet Web projects. If you send $5 (US or
    Canadian) to cover duplication, postage, and handling, he will send you
    a diskette containing the relevant test programs, fixes, Internet
    postings and essays. Send email to: [email protected] or discuss this
    problem on the Internet newsgroup in: comp.os.os2.bugs.
    
    You can also write via snail mail:
    
    Roedy Green, Canadian Mind Products #601 - 1330 Burrard Street,
    Vancouver, BC CANADA V6Z 2B8 (604) 685-8412
    
    

    I'm always happy to be proven wrong, especially if BOTH DIGITAL and the
    customer will come out ahead.  Ignore what I said a couple of replies
    back.  ;-)
    
    This case is being worked as a helpdesk call and good progress is being
    made.  I fully expect a bios fix to be made available soon, but don't
    wish to jump the gun.
    
    I just wanted people to know that the issue is being seriously worked.
    
    /Bill

    Does anyone know of problems using FDISK on big disks??  
    
    My customer is now having difficulty using FDISK on the Maxtor 5.1gb
    EIDE disk.
    
    Just wondering if anyone else has had any experience with this
    drive...on any PC.  Can FDISK handle it or does it need to be tweaked
    too?
    
    Regards,
    Tom
    

    
    The max partition size that can be designated through FDISK would be
    2 gig, hardware notwithstanding, ie: the controller needs to support
    greater than 1 gig partitions.
    
    From NT you can do 4 gig, FAT partitions, but DOS won't recognize it.
    
    Did the customer get any documentation with that disk that explains
    the issues?
    
    chet
    

    have the customer create several partitions on the drive.
    
    chet

    Thanks for the response.
    
    I believe they are trying to partition the disk into 3 partitions, the
    largest being 2gb.
    
    I have to call and find out the details...  fyi - Here is his query;
    
    =================
    
    tom;
    
    got both bios upgrades and installed uneventfully.
    
    both machines will now boot, which is a move in the right direction.
    
    however,
    we cannot seem to get the vanilla dos utility fdisk to partition the
    drives successfully. it seems to recognize that there is a lot of disk
    there, but won't create the extended (and logical) partitions that will
    use the rest of the disk with dos 6.22
    
    any ideas???
    

Before fat32 I was never able to use more than 4 GB drives, 2GB in
the primary partition, then 2 GB more in the extended.  

 Bruce

    What type of system are these disks attached to? Some of the older PCs
    did not have BIOS setup to recognize disks larger than 2.5GB. 
    
    glen

    You are correct these systems did not support big disks...
    
    A BIOS update has been done for the Venturis and Celebris PCs so that
    they will accomodate the Maxtor 5.1GB disks.  The customer is trying to
    test this and is running into problems using FDISK.  The goal is to set
    up 2 - 2.1gb partitions and one additional that uses the remaining
    space.  Actually, the smaller partition will be the system partition,
    the 2 bigger ones are for data.
    
    Regards,
    Tom

    I believe that there is a problem with the Maxtor 5.1GB drives and
    FDISK. There is something on the Maxtor web page that explains how to
    make it work.
    
    glen

    Thanks!  I'll check it out.
    
    Regards,
    Tom

    here are the instructions for fixing the Maxtor 5.1GB disks to work
    with the new BIOS:
    
    These are the steps for setting up a >4.2GB drive (this is for people
    who don't want to use a disk manager...like Ontrack).
    
    This works in conjunction with the BIOS.
    
    1. Autotype the drive in CMOS setup.
    2. Manually adjust the number of heads from 16 to 15.
    3. Multiply the number of cylinders by 16/15 (rounded down to whole
       number). Since 16/15 is 1.06667, the simplest way to multiply
       by 16/15 would be to multiply by 1.06667 (and then round down to
       whole number).
    4. Adjust the number of cylinders to this larger amount.
    5. Write down these adjusted values for cylinders, heads and sectors.
    6. Save changes to CMOS, partition and format the drive.
    
    regards,
    glen

    Thanks!  I'll make sure my customer gets this info.
    
    Regards,
    Tom