Publication Date: 1990
Author Unknown
ST412/506 interface drives
17XX error messages
If you are getting a 1700 error message upon booting the system, it may be due to one of the following common errors:
1790 is an error on disc 1, your C: drive. This error is nothing to worry about in a new installation, it simply means that your drive needs to be formatted.
1791 is the same message referring to your second hard drive.
1780 errors usually refer to your cabling and drive select - check these again! This error refers to your first drive. 1781 is the same message referring to your second hard drive.
1701 and 1780/1781 errors can mean many things. Basically, they mean that the system does not recognize your hard drive. These errors are commonly caused by a mistake in installation. Make sure the drive select jumper is installed in the correct position on your drive or try your controller in another slot. Check that the cables are correctly attached and that the drive is getting the proper power from your system power supply
SCSI interface drives
SCSI error messages
If error messages such as "Mode sense error," "Inquiry error," or "Adapter self-test failed" occur when booting or your drive issues a series of one to seven flashes from the drive's front- panel LED on power-up, it is likely that your drive is defective.
Your drive does not power up
Make sure you are getting adequate power to the drive, as described below. You must be able to supply the drive with the maximum power required at power on. See drive specifications for your drive power requirements.
You can verify that the drive is getting power by measuring the voltage on the drive PC board with a voltmeter. The power connector from the power supply to your hard disc has four wire connections. The two inside connections are grounds and are black in color. One of the outside wires is red in color and provides the +5 volt source. This voltage should be between 4.8 and 5.2 VDC. The other outside write is usually yellow in color and provides the +12 volt source. This voltage should be between 11.5 and 12.6 VDC. You can also check the drive by plugging it into another system with a known good power supply to verify that it functions.
2-digit error codes
The following is a brief explanation of the more common 2-digit error codes:
Error code 80 is a time-out error.
Error code 40 is a seek failure.
Error code 20 is an invalid command or a controller failure
System hangs when you enter the debug address
The system will hang when you enter the debug command if the wrong address is entered or if the controller's address is conflicting with the memory location of another card in the system. Check the address jumpers on the controller card.
"Drive fails recal or test drive ready" error in Disk Manager
The "drive fails recal or test drive ready" error is commonly caused by a mistake in installation. Make sure the drive select jumper is installed in the correct position. Check that the cables are correctly attached and that the drive is getting the proper power.
I/O errors in Disk Manager
If you encounter an occasional "Uncorrectable ECC - I/O error" message during the initialization while using Disk Manager, don't worry. This simply means that the program has found and mapped out an error on the disk surface.
You will receive a "No record found - I/O error" message if you try to verify a drive that has not yet been initialized.
If you receive an "Unrecoverable I/O error" message or other I/O error message on every cylinder and head, there are several possible causes. If you are formatting a drive in an XT or are using an 8-bit controller in an AT, you should low-level format the drive through debug using the controller's BIOS format routine.
In an AT system using a 16-bit controller, I/O errors may occur if the drive type entered in your system setup is not the correct type for your hard drive. Run Disk Manager in "manual mode" or use your system's setup routine to change the drive type. For a step-by-step walk-through using Disk Manager in the manual mode,
Errors encountered in FDISK or partitioning
FDISK is a DOS partitioning program found on your DOS diskette. FDISK will partition your drive into one DOS partition and one extended DOS partition depending on your version of DOS. Please note that DOS 3.2 or lower does not create extended DOS partitions and cannot partition drives over 32 MB. If you have a drive which is greater than 32 MB and do not have DOS 3.3 or higher, you will need to partition the drive with Disk Manager or another partitioning software.
Errors encountered in the high-level format
"Invalid drive specification" error message
To verify that the drive partitioning was performed successfully, run FDISK and display your partitions. If you receive a message such as "No partitions defined," you need to create your partition table with FDISK, Disk Manager, or another partitioning software.
If you have already defined your partitions and receive the "Invalid drive specification" error message, recreate your partition table, then power the system down before attempting a high-level format.
"Track 0 bad, disk unusable" error message
If you are using DOS version 3.1 and receive the error message "Track 0 bad, disk unusable" at the end of the high-level format, don't worry. You will need to edit the buffers statement in your CONFIG.SYS file to read BUFFERS=99. Then you may reboot the system and your high-level format will complete successfully.
If the error still occurs or you are not using DOS 3.1, verify that the low-level format was successfully completed and that the correct drive parameters were used. If your low-level format routine asks you to "dynamically configure" the drive and you need the correct Seagate drive parameters
"Insert diskette for drive C:" in an XT system
If you receive the message "Insert diskette for drive C:" at the beginning of the high-level format, the jumper settings on the motherboard of your XT are probably incorrect
Trouble getting the full capacity of the drive
If you are formatting your drive in an XT system or in an AT with an 8-bit controller and are not getting the full capacity of your drive, you may need to do the low-level format through the controller's debug format routine. You must enter the correct parameters for your drive.
If you are using Disk Manager to format your drive in an AT and your drive is a non-standard drive, that is, one that does not have a corresponding entry in your machine's system setup, Disk Manager will compensate by allowing partitions to utilize the drive's full capacity. These partitions will be handled by the Disk Manager device driver, DMDRVR.BIN. The DOS partition on a non-standard disk can use only the part of the disk depicted by
the BIOS ROM for the particular drive type you have chosen. Therefore, if you have a drive which does not have a drive type entry with the correct number of heads, the DOS partition will waste disk space. If the head count mismatch is severe, only a very small DOS partition would be possible without wasting a significant portion of the capacity. This limitation does not apply to partitions handled by the Disk Manager device driver, such as a Write/Read partition. In other words, if you have a head/cylinder count mismatch, you should create a small DOS partition. You can then use all of the remaining cylinders of the disk for any other partitions. You must invoke Disk Manager in the "manual mode" with DM /M to control these choices.
"Disk boot failure" error message when trying to boot from the hard drive
If your system still not boot, insert your DOS disk in the A: drive, and at the A> prompt type "FORMAT C: /S" and press enter
If you used Disk Manager to format your drive, you will need to install the device driver on your C: drive in order to access additional partitions. When formatting has completed, insert your Disk Manager disk in the A: drive and at the A>
prompt type "COPY CONFIG.SYS C:" and press . Then type, at the A> prompt, "COPY DMDRVR.BIN C:." You will now have a copy of the Disk Manager device driver in your C: drive root directory and an entry in your CONFIG.SYS file which reads "DEVICE=DMDRVR.BIN." Now boot the system from the hard disc. Directory commands directed at all partitions should operate correctly and CHKDSK should display the correct information as well.
Unable to access any partition beyond the C: partition
The reason you cannot access other partitions is that either the program failed to correctly copy the CONFIG.SYS file to your C: drive root directory or you accidentally copied over your old CONFIG.SYS file when you restored your backed up files.
In either case, if you are using Disk Manager, place the disk in the A: drive and type, at the A> prompt, "DMCFIG" and press . This program will check that you have fulfilled the two requirements for accessing the secondary partitions on boot-up: (1) Your CONFIG.SYS file must contain an entry which reads "DEVICE=DMDRVR.BIN;" (2) The DMDRVR.BIN file must be copied to the root directory of your C: drive. You should now be able to
access all other partitions after booting to the C: drive.
If you have checked and these two conditions have been met and you still cannot access the D: drive, be certain that you have completed the preparation part of the Disk Manager program. At the A> prompt, type "DM /M" and select "P" for Partitioning to check the partition table.
Unable to access the second physical drive
If you cannot access your second physical hard drive and your first drive was NOT formatted with Disk Manager, the following extra steps are required to enable your system to recognize the second drive:
Disk Manager's device driver, DMDRVR.BIN, must reside in the root directory of you boot drive. This file must be copied from the Disk Manager diskette by typing, at the A> prompt, "COPY DMDRVR.BIN C:" and pressing . If your boot drive does not have a CONFIG.SYS file, you may also copy this file from the Disk Manager diskette. At the A> prompt, type "COPY CONFIG.SYS C:" and press . If your boot drive already has a CONFIG.SYS
file, you will need to edit this file and add a line which reads "DEVICE=DMDRVR.BIN."
If you have completed these steps, but your system still does not recognize the second hard drive, check to make sure you have removed the terminating resistor from the drive which is installed on the middle connector on your cable, or the drive nearest the controller card.
Jumper settings for the ST4096 and ST4144R
Utilizing the following additional shorting jumpers will increase the performance of your ST4096 and ST4144R drives made in 1989.
On the same jumper block as the drive select jumper, add an additional jumper at position 6. Directly behind the drive select jumper block is a 4-pin T-shaped header. Short the 2 pins in the middle. Directly behind the 4-pin T-shaped header, next to the copper or plastic tab, is a 3-pin jumper header. Place a shorting jumper on the 2 pins farthest from the copper or plastic tab.