Could it be, that there might be some Linux partitions on the drives, that calls for the error?

Oh, wait now, is this my issue; there was a 50-68 pin converter in the connector? Should I be using the external connector then?

Oh, the external is also only an SE channel ... So conclusion - this ISN'T a UW controller?

H3nrik V! wrote on 2023-12-21, 18:56:

Oh, the external is also only an SE channel ... So conclusion - this ISN'T a UW controller?

yep, the AHA-2940U is not a wide controller.

also error message does smell like termination issue.
- How do you have it cabled up ?
- what exact drives are you using ?
- does one have termination enabled?
- does the cable that you are using have a terminator at both ends ?

- does the controller have termination enabled ? ( it shouldn't with the narrow to wide adapter in place )

edit: if the drives you're using are either sca or wide then your setup should look something like this

terminator - cable - drive - cable - drive - cable - widetonarrow adapter connected to 2940U - cable - terminator

none of the drives or controller should have termination enabled.

Not all revisions of the BIOS can format a disk, they can only verify it.

weedeewee wrote on 2023-12-21, 19:38:

yep, the AHA-2940U is not a wide controller. […]
Show full quote

H3nrik V! wrote on 2023-12-21, 18:56:

Oh, the external is also only an SE channel ... So conclusion - this ISN'T a UW controller?

yep, the AHA-2940U is not a wide controller.

also error message does smell like termination issue.
- How do you have it cabled up ?
- what exact drives are you using ?
- does one have termination enabled?
- does the cable that you are using have a terminator at both ends ?

- does the controller have termination enabled ? ( it shouldn't with the narrow to wide adapter in place )

edit: if the drives you're using are either sca or wide then your setup should look something like this

terminator - cable - drive - cable - drive - cable - widetonarrow adapter connected to 2940U - cable - terminator

none of the drives or controller should have termination enabled.

The drives don't have termination according to the documentation.

Attached picture of one of the (identical) drives and the terminator. Terminator is on last connector, furthest away from the controller, the drives have been on the two connectors just before that.

The controller has termination mode set to automatic, which I would guess would enable it when nothing is connected to the external connector.

But then again, I wasn't aware it was a 50-68 adapter. Maybe I should jumper the drives to single ended, since the controller is?

Anyways, gonna tinker a little more tomorrow and if no success, wait till I'm getting the P2B-DS, the drives have been running with before, up and running. Maybe some of the holidays 🤷‍♂️

ElectroSoldier wrote on 2023-12-21, 20:04:

Not all revisions of the BIOS can format a disk, they can only verify it.

As in the function doesn't work, or it isn't there? My card has the function, it just fails with the message in my first post.

H3nrik V! wrote on 2023-12-21, 18:21:

Have an ASUS P2B-DS, that came with 2 Quantum Atlas IV disks, wired up with cable and end termination.

H3nrik V! wrote on 2023-12-21, 20:15:

The drives don't have termination according to the documentation. […]
Show full quote

weedeewee wrote on 2023-12-21, 19:38:

yep, the AHA-2940U is not a wide controller. […]
Show full quote

H3nrik V! wrote on 2023-12-21, 18:56:

Oh, the external is also only an SE channel ... So conclusion - this ISN'T a UW controller?

yep, the AHA-2940U is not a wide controller.

also error message does smell like termination issue.
- How do you have it cabled up ?
- what exact drives are you using ?
- does one have termination enabled?
- does the cable that you are using have a terminator at both ends ?

- does the controller have termination enabled ? ( it shouldn't with the narrow to wide adapter in place )

edit: if the drives you're using are either sca or wide then your setup should look something like this

terminator - cable - drive - cable - drive - cable - widetonarrow adapter connected to 2940U - cable - terminator

none of the drives or controller should have termination enabled.

The drives don't have termination according to the documentation.

Attached picture of one of the (identical) drives and the terminator. Terminator is on last connector, furthest away from the controller, the drives have been on the two connectors just before that.

The controller has termination mode set to automatic, which I would guess would enable it when nothing is connected to the external connector.

But then again, I wasn't aware it was a 50-68 adapter. Maybe I should jumper the drives to single ended, since the controller is?

Anyways, gonna tinker a little more tomorrow and if no success, wait till I'm getting the P2B-DS, the drives have been running with before, up and running. Maybe some of the holidays 🤷‍♂️

Enjoy, don't worry about the format command.
Try to use them in an operating system.

H3nrik V! wrote on 2023-12-21, 20:17:

ElectroSoldier wrote on 2023-12-21, 20:04:

Not all revisions of the BIOS can format a disk, they can only verify it.

As in the function doesn't work, or it isn't there? My card has the function, it just fails with the message in my first post.

Hummm...
It wouldnt be there at all... Which points to a problem somewhere else me thinks.

I assume you have inherited this setup and it has been working in the current setup in the past?

weedeewee wrote on 2023-12-21, 20:34:

H3nrik V! wrote on 2023-12-21, 20:15:

The drives don't have termination according to the documentation. […]
Show full quote

weedeewee wrote on 2023-12-21, 19:38:

yep, the AHA-2940U is not a wide controller. […]
Show full quote

yep, the AHA-2940U is not a wide controller.

also error message does smell like termination issue.
- How do you have it cabled up ?
- what exact drives are you using ?
- does one have termination enabled?
- does the cable that you are using have a terminator at both ends ?

- does the controller have termination enabled ? ( it shouldn't with the narrow to wide adapter in place )

edit: if the drives you're using are either sca or wide then your setup should look something like this

terminator - cable - drive - cable - drive - cable - widetonarrow adapter connected to 2940U - cable - terminator

none of the drives or controller should have termination enabled.

The drives don't have termination according to the documentation.

Attached picture of one of the (identical) drives and the terminator. Terminator is on last connector, furthest away from the controller, the drives have been on the two connectors just before that.

The controller has termination mode set to automatic, which I would guess would enable it when nothing is connected to the external connector.

But then again, I wasn't aware it was a 50-68 adapter. Maybe I should jumper the drives to single ended, since the controller is?

Anyways, gonna tinker a little more tomorrow and if no success, wait till I'm getting the P2B-DS, the drives have been running with before, up and running. Maybe some of the holidays 🤷‍♂️

Enjoy, don't worry about the format command.
Try to use them in an operating system.

This is what Im thinking myself.
Does an OS see them, and can it work with them?

ElectroSoldier wrote on 2023-12-21, 20:36:

Hummm... It wouldnt be there at all... Which points to a problem somewhere else me thinks. […]
Show full quote

H3nrik V! wrote on 2023-12-21, 20:17:

ElectroSoldier wrote on 2023-12-21, 20:04:

Not all revisions of the BIOS can format a disk, they can only verify it.

As in the function doesn't work, or it isn't there? My card has the function, it just fails with the message in my first post.

Hummm...
It wouldnt be there at all... Which points to a problem somewhere else me thinks.

I assume you have inherited this setup and it has been working in the current setup in the past?

The drives were used with an Asus p2b-ds, so no, haven't run with this controller before.

ElectroSoldier wrote on 2023-12-21, 20:37:

weedeewee wrote on 2023-12-21, 20:34:

H3nrik V! wrote on 2023-12-21, 20:15:

The drives don't have termination according to the documentation. […]
Show full quote

The drives don't have termination according to the documentation.

Attached picture of one of the (identical) drives and the terminator. Terminator is on last connector, furthest away from the controller, the drives have been on the two connectors just before that.

The controller has termination mode set to automatic, which I would guess would enable it when nothing is connected to the external connector.

But then again, I wasn't aware it was a 50-68 adapter. Maybe I should jumper the drives to single ended, since the controller is?

Anyways, gonna tinker a little more tomorrow and if no success, wait till I'm getting the P2B-DS, the drives have been running with before, up and running. Maybe some of the holidays 🤷‍♂️

Enjoy, don't worry about the format command.
Try to use them in an operating system.

This is what Im thinking myself.
Does an OS see them, and can it work with them?

I currently only have W98 on a system with PCI slot, and the IDE drives I recovered from the same build were formatted in Ext2 format IIRC, so W98 doesn't see them. Fdisk doesn't see the disks either ... I'll take it easy and see what happens when the get back to the p2b-ds, and maybe W2K 😀

H3nrik V! wrote on 2023-12-21, 20:59:

ElectroSoldier wrote on 2023-12-21, 20:37:

weedeewee wrote on 2023-12-21, 20:34:

Enjoy, don't worry about the format command.
Try to use them in an operating system.

This is what Im thinking myself.
Does an OS see them, and can it work with them?

I currently only have W98 on a system with PCI slot, and the IDE drives I recovered from the same build were formatted in Ext2 format IIRC, so W98 doesn't see them. Fdisk doesn't see the disks either ... I'll take it easy and see what happens when the get back to the p2b-ds, and maybe W2K 😀

okay, don't throw too many disks at us.
explore2fs can be used to view files on ext2 partitions, or fsdext2
But the disks need to be seen by the operating system.

For the scsi disks in DOS this can be as easy as having the scsi bios scan for the drives and have the bios ... something or other can't recall.
Some scsi bioses only support one or two diskdrives in such a fashion, others support more. Some don't support this function at all.
If I recall correctly, while the computer is booting and the scsi bios is detecting drives, it will show a drive letter after the displayed information of the detected drives.
for the 2940U, for dos, ASPI8DOS.SYS and ASPIDISK.SYS can be loaded via CONFIG.SYS.

for win98, no idea if it has native support for the 2940U (too lazy to google it atm) I think there was adaptec EZ-SCSI software which had the drivers and some tools.

fyi. SCSI, pronounced skoezi or skuzi, which is short/italian for excuse me. 😁 (jk)

enjoy & have fun.

So the controller can see both disks in the ID scan?
But when you try to access the disks in the BIOS utility you cant do anything with them?

You may try to disable sync negotiation in BIOS' device configuration.
Just for testing purposes - to find termination faults - you even may try to not use that terminator then.

Adaptecs surface test just transfers commands - you won't find termination faults with it.

Does your Quantum Atlas IV U-160 disk have a 68pin or 80pin (SCA) interface?
What's the status of parity in your controller?

I haven't noticed any problem when an unused high byte on a wide cable is floating.

Hmmm. Since they have the ID jumpers the drives are standard LVD/SE wide drives, not SCA. Make sure there is a jumper on the SE setting (pins 13-14).
What type of termination are you using at the end of your scsi cable ? It cannot be a passive one for scsi that new, it must be an "active" termination and the controller or drive needs to supply the Term power.
some reference https://www.seagate.com/staticfiles/maxtor/en … _iv_jumpers.pdf
As for seeing the drives in Win9x... if it has NTFS partitions you will not see anything or be able to access them from 98 (without an add-on strictly to read ntfs).
You may need to use Diskpart or similar to view what partitions are on the drives, Fdisk is somewhat useless for that if sco, linux, freebsd was installed with special parms...
Be careful if you use diskpart...

ElectroSoldier wrote on 2023-12-21, 23:52:

So the controller can see both disks in the ID scan?
But when you try to access the disks in the BIOS utility you cant do anything with them?

Yes, both disks are visible and both disks can run the verification, but not format.

weedeewee wrote on 2023-12-21, 22:03:

okay, don't throw too many disks at us. explore2fs can be used to view files on ext2 partitions, or fsdext2 But the disks need […]
Show full quote

H3nrik V! wrote on 2023-12-21, 20:59:

ElectroSoldier wrote on 2023-12-21, 20:37:

This is what Im thinking myself.
Does an OS see them, and can it work with them?

I currently only have W98 on a system with PCI slot, and the IDE drives I recovered from the same build were formatted in Ext2 format IIRC, so W98 doesn't see them. Fdisk doesn't see the disks either ... I'll take it easy and see what happens when the get back to the p2b-ds, and maybe W2K 😀

okay, don't throw too many disks at us.
explore2fs can be used to view files on ext2 partitions, or fsdext2
But the disks need to be seen by the operating system.

For the scsi disks in DOS this can be as easy as having the scsi bios scan for the drives and have the bios ... something or other can't recall.
Some scsi bioses only support one or two diskdrives in such a fashion, others support more. Some don't support this function at all.
If I recall correctly, while the computer is booting and the scsi bios is detecting drives, it will show a drive letter after the displayed information of the detected drives.
for the 2940U, for dos, ASPI8DOS.SYS and ASPIDISK.SYS can be loaded via CONFIG.SYS.

for win98, no idea if it has native support for the 2940U (too lazy to google it atm) I think there was adaptec EZ-SCSI software which had the drivers and some tools.

fyi. SCSI, pronounced skoezi or skuzi, which is short/italian for excuse me. 😁 (jk)

enjoy & have fun.

Win98 found and installed the driver by itself. I think I'll try an updated driver and see what the EZ-SCSI software will do. Getting DOS drivers working is probably a couple of steps away 🤣