Re: Apple IIGS Hard Drive won't boot

[dempson@actrix.gen.nz (David Empson)]

Walter McCants <wmccants@erols.com> wrote:

> Tried doing that , but no hard drive partitions show on the desktop when I
> boot.

Quoting from your earlier message:

> Get either of two error msgs when try to boot the HD:"SCSI BOOT ERROR" or
> "SCSI device requires a driver. Please install SCSI driver on boot disk
> and reboot system."

The first of these messages is generated by the SCSI card firmware if it
gets a major error when trying to read the boot code from the first SCSI
drive it detected.  The usual cause is improper termination (or no
source of termination power), but it might also be a faulty card/cable/
drive, or a drive which has a dubious SCSI implementation and is
somewhat fussy.

The second message only appears if you manage to get part of the way
through booting GS/OS from a hard drive (on an Apple SCSI card) which
does not have SCSIHD.DRIVER and/or SCSI.MANAGER installed on it.

You couldn't get this far unless the card managed to boot, so it sounds
like an intermittent problem.

> In short, I can't get to the HD to install the drivers. Tried using
> Advanced Disk Utility on the System Tools1 disk as well as the Apple High
> Speed SCSI Utility but neither of them recognize the HD so I can install
> the drivers and partition.

How did you boot the machine when running ADU?  If you booted from a
normal system disk, it probably didn't have the SCSI drivers installed.
You should boot from the :Install disk, then quit from the Installer and
launch ADU from the launcher (with disk swapping as required, unless you
have two 3.5" drives).  The Install disk DOES have the SCSI drivers on
it.

As for the Apple HS SCSI Utility (HDSCPARTITION, if I remember right): I
wouldn't touch it with a bargepole.  Try to locate a copy of Chinook
SCSI Utilities (now freeware), which is much more useful, and might
actually give you some idea of what the problem is (such as an error
number which I could look up).

> The drive is a Conner CP-3100 sold under the Quality Computer label.Any
> ideas on how to determine if the problem is with the card or the
> drive?

About the only useful way is to try another drive.

Check that the Conner drive is terminated (either externally or with
resistor packs, but NOT both).

If your SCSI card hasn't been modified to provide termination power, the
most likely explanation is that the drive isn't providing termination
power either, hence the bus is not properly terminated.

-- 
David Empson
dempson@actrix.gen.nz
Snail mail: P.O. Box 27-103, Wellington, New Zealand