SCSI2SD now working without issues

All,

With the most recent firmware update the scsi2sd adapter now works perfectly in a cube. No error messages during startup. I have tested with Nextstep 3.3 and 1.0 with no issues.

Firmware available here:
http://www.codesrc.com/files/scsi2sd/v3.6-RC1/firmware/

General information here:
http://www.codesrc.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=SCSI2SD

This is currently the most economical way of replacing a failing disk with something more reliable. My only complaint is the board layout does not have screw holes in the proper positions for easy mounting.

--
Brian

Thanks for the info!

I'm planning ($) buy 2 of these SCSI2SD, one for my NeXTstation other for my Mac Plus.
I'll mod the Mac Plus to include an internal disk.

Someone posted a nice 3D printable drive tray for standard 3.5" here:

https://mac68k.info/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=291

--
Brian

Quote from: "barcher174"
With the most recent firmware update the scsi2sd adapter now works perfectly in a cube. No error messages during startup. I have tested with Nextstep 3.3 and 1.0 with no issues.

If the Adapter was received with the proper firmware, do i need the assistance of Windows or OSX to configure the SD-card or can i put the whole thing into the NeXT and initialize it in the black box? (creating disktab entry and so on)

I just used the images that mikeboss collected and put them on the sd card from my Mac. I used the --apple flag when configuring the firmware. I think at the least you'll need to have a separate pc to set the initial config. There is also a Linux port of the tool if that is a concern.

Quote from: "barcher174"I think at the least you'll need to have a separate pc to set the initial config. There is also a Linux port of the tool if that is a concern.

the main problem would be that i haven't any "PC" with SCSI anymore, so maybe i had to dig out an old Macintosh. But i have seen that the Adapter isn't available anymore.
(Products marked with *** are not available in the desired quantity or not in stock!)

Quote from: "Andreas"

Quote from: "barcher174"I think at the least you'll need to have a separate pc to set the initial config. There is also a Linux port of the tool if that is a concern.

the main problem would be that i haven't any "PC" with SCSI anymore, so maybe i had to dig out an old Macintosh. But i have seen that the Adapter isn't available anymore.
(Products marked with *** are not available in the desired quantity or not in stock!)

The SCSI2SD is configured through a regular USB cable with a PC.  Aside from NeXT machines, I also use them with other retro PCs and it's been a great replacement for SCSI drives.

Quote from: "pitz"
The SCSI2SD is configured through a regular USB cable with a PC.  Aside from NeXT machines, I also use them with other retro PCs and it's been a great replacement for SCSI drives.

Ah, Thanx, so i don't need an old Adaptec 2940 to configure

I haven't tested it yet, but there is a new firmware out this month that adds support for 4 virtual devices.

Hi. I just received a scsi2sd board with the 4.00 firmware. I installed a generic 8 gb microsd card. When connected to my nextstation, I get a "Can't determine drive capacity" error during boot. Afterwards, I'm invited to initialize the disk, but capacity is said to be 0 Kb.

Should I edit disktab? Is there any other solution?

Thanks.

maybe you need 3x firmware  :?

Quote from: "igor_av"Hi. I just received a scsi2sd board with the 4.00 firmware. I installed a generic 8 gb microsd card. When connected to my nextstation, I get a "Can't determine drive capacity" error during boot. Afterwards, I'm invited to initialize the disk, but capacity is said to be 0 Kb.

Should I edit disktab? Is there any other solution?

Thanks.

If you want disks larger than 2GB you will need to edit the disktab. Otherwise create 4 separate 2GB disks. If you still have problems try changing the drive manufacturer and model to be a contemporary drive type.  

--
Brian

QuoteIf you want disks larger than 2GB you will need to edit the disktab. Otherwise create 4 separate 2GB disks. If you still have problems try changing the drive manufacturer and model to be a contemporary drive type.

Thanks for your suggestions. I made 1GB and 2GB virtual disks, none works. I also changed the manufacturer and model to fit with the internal drive. I get the same complaints : "ERROR :  Can't read device capacity
DISK UNFORMATTED"

In another post, I think someone mentioned the --apple flag. It is not an option with the new GUI configuration tool.

I tried mounting the scsi2sd in an old G3 Powermac running Mac OS 9.2. The drive appears has unsupported in Drive Setup.

Now, I'm trying to format the 1GB virtual drive using FWB Hard Disk Toolkit. The operation has been running for 30 minutes so far. The estimated completion time was 1 minute.

Finally, I don't think I can install a 3.x firmware on the new board.

I will try the new firmware this weekend and let you know what i find.

Quote from: "igor_av"

QuoteIf you want disks larger than 2GB you will need to edit the disktab. Otherwise create 4 separate 2GB disks. If you still have problems try changing the drive manufacturer and model to be a contemporary drive type.

Thanks for your suggestions. I made 1GB and 2GB virtual disks, none works. I also changed the manufacturer and model to fit with the internal drive. I get the same complaints : "ERROR :  Can't read device capacity
DISK UNFORMATTED"

In another post, I think someone mentioned the --apple flag. It is not an option with the new GUI configuration tool.

I tried mounting the scsi2sd in an old G3 Powermac running Mac OS 9.2. The drive appears has unsupported in Drive Setup.

Now, I'm trying to format the 1GB virtual drive using FWB Hard Disk Toolkit. The operation has been running for 30 minutes so far. The estimated completion time was 1 minute.

Finally, I don't think I can install a 3.x firmware on the new board.

A quick follow-up.

I've been in touch with the developper, Michael. He mentioned that there was a compatibility issue with some cards using a Samsung controller. He sent me a beta version of the firmware. It didn't work. I tried two other sd cards, from Kingston and Sandisk (both are 16gb, but the scsi2sd is configured to treat them as 2 gb disks), but still, NS reports that it is unable to determine the drive's capacity.

Michael also sent me a different version of the flashing utility, to monitor the activity, but I haven't been able to use is so far (some dependencies are broken on the linux version I use).

I see the same behavior with the 1st hardware revision, so these issues are definitely due to the new firmware.

For now, what will work is to make a 2GB setup on the drive. Enable Parity and unit attention. Start at sector 0, 512byte sector size. Then restore one of the drive images that have been posted previously using another machine. This seems to be stable for me with the new firmware.

--
Brian

Quote from: "barcher174"For now, what will work is to make a 2GB setup on the drive. Enable Parity and unit attention. Start at sector 0, 512byte sector size. Then restore one of the drive images that have been posted previously using another machine. This seems to be stable for me with the new firmware.

Thanks, but it still doesn't work for me. I tried with the OS 4.2 disk image. Unit attention and parity are checked. SCSI ID is set to 3.

Errr... :oops:

You were right, barcher174. By swapping the internal HD with the SCSI2SD, I found out that the external enclosure I was using was faulty. Using your method, I was able to create 2 2GB partitions, fully recognized by NS.

Thanks.

Did anyone try to add a swap partiton with other partitions ?

Hi,

SCSI2SD V5.0 with the latest firmware V4.2.4 is working nicely here after I dd'ed an NS 3.3 image onto the sd card.

But: I cannot initialize any sd card on my NeXTstation. Using BuildDisk or command line tools (disk, newfs, ...): I always get an error saying that the cylinder group is too large (16) and it cannot be more than 7.

How can this be resolved?

The problem is the cylinder and sector count reported by the drive. Contact the developer. He made me a custom firmware which resolved this. I requested the ability to change these numbers in the utility for a future release.

--
Brian

Ok. How is the cylinder group size calculated given the cylinder and sector count?

(<X> bytes/sector)×(<Y> sectors/track)×(<Z> heads (<A> tracks/cylinder))×(<B> cylinders)=<C> MiB

Here is an example from a drive that is properly supported by the OS:

Drive: Quantum Fireball1050S

512 bytes per sector

139 sectors per track

4 tracks per cylinder

4135 cylinder per volume

1 spare sector per cylinder

2051459 usable sectors on volume

I thought the cylinder group size would not be expressed in Bytes but in # of cylinders that are in a group. After all NS reports the cylinder group size in a fairly small number (7, 16, ...).

From what I read UFS puts files and their meta data (inodes, ...) in groups of nearby cylinders to avoid long travel of HD heads.

Hey guys! FYI, recently completed a large manufacturing run of SCSI2SD adapters, in direct collaboration with Michael McMaster, its creator. More details about availability at this thread:

http://www.nextcomputers.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=21569#21569

Are any of you seeing kernel panics with the SCSI2SD? It runs fine in normal operation, but if I'm doing something more disk-intensive such as compiling gcc or other software I'm seeing the panics. It's somewhat intermittent in nature but it does happen regularly. I'm using NS 3.3 with SCSI2SD v5.0a with firmware v4.4.

There was a new firmware just released that seems more stable.

Quote from: "barcher174"There was a new firmware just released that seems more stable.

I just bought a bunch of these cards , however many of them have different bios revisions so obviously I would like to upgrade them to the latest version of the software.
A few questions I would really like to use MAC OSX but I can't make heads nor tails on how to get the scsi2sd-monitor or scsi2sd-util software to work on Mac OSX
I have been able to get it to work on Windows 10 on the Mac Mini but am having problems figuring out the process for finding the bootloader
http://www.codesrc.com/files/scsi2sd/ is where I am downloading files...
One revision is this one http://www.codesrc.com/files/scsi2sd/v4.2.2/
which is just plain evil LOL according to this http://www.codesrc.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=SCSI2SD  but I'm having the same problem with this revision http://www.codesrc.com/files/scsi2sd/v4.4/  and yes I read the user manual online here http://www.codesrc.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=SCSI2SD_UserManual   which says do this:
Updating the firmware
## Obtain the latest firmware file and scsi2sd-util utility from codesrc.com.
## Disconnect or turn off ALL sources of power from the SCSI2SD, including the USB cable. Any connected SCSI host controller or devices must be turned off.
## Run the scsi2sd-util line utility.

Execute permissions are required on Mac OSX and Linux:
sudo chmod a+x scsi2sd-util

## Select "Upgrade Firmware" from the scsi2sd-util File menu, and select the firmware file. Click OK.
## Connect the USB cable.

scsi2sd-util_upgradefirmware.png

but it stalls before reaching here:

## The log window should show the device found and the firmware updated.

Looking for the bootloader file : I'm assuming it is looking for one   or all of these a readme here would be brilliant,,, these

http://www.codesrc.com/files/scsi2sd/v4.5/bootloader/
Which one and where do you install it , what format do you save it as? Do you just copy and paste into a text document and name it bootloader?

[ ] SCSI2SD-V3.hex 2015-11-05 12:22  318K  
[ ] SCSI2SD-V4.hex 2015-11-05 12:22  318K  
[ ] USB_Bootloader-V3.elf 2015-11-05 12:21  706K  
[ ] USB_Bootloader-V3.hex 2015-11-05 12:22  318K  
[ ] USB_Bootloader-V4.elf 2015-11-05 12:22  707K  
[ ] USB_Bootloader-V4.hex 2015-11-05 12:22  318K  

and yes I download this http://www.codesrc.com/files/scsi2sd/v4.5/firmware/


C:\Users\Rob Blessin\Downloads\firmware_bundle-v4.5.00 (4).zip

I unzip it but it does have 2 files , I open upgrade firmware and highlight one of the files below and it is where it hangs while looking for the bootloader when clicking one :
SCSI2SD-V3.cyacd
SCSI2SD-V4.cyacd

In the log I'm getting error opening HID device , it is a brand new microsd cable plugged into a brand new MacMINI USB port

Appreciate your time , I've spent hours  but I know I'm close and am guessing I need to have the bootloader file where it finds it.  

Best regards Rob Blessin

Hello!

I just updated a scsi2sd to firmware 4.5 on a Mac today. Here's what I did:

Download scsi2sd-util:

http://www.codesrc.com/files/scsi2sd/latest/mac/scsi2sd-util

This is the file you need to set the execute bit on in the terminal via:

"chmod a+x scsi2sd-util"

Next, you need the 4.5 firmware file. Download:

http://www.codesrc.com/files/scsi2sd/latest/firmware/firmware_bundle-v4.5.00.scsi2sd

Once the execute bit has been set on "scsi2sd-util", just double click it to launch.

From the "File" menu, choose "Upgrade Firmware". Point to the "firmware_bundle-v4.5.00.scsi2sd" file you downloaded earlier. It will then update the firmware.

I'm sure there would be a lot less confusing if they offered a zipped version of the executables so the file attributes are preserved. Not sure why they thought it best to offer raw binaries like that.

Quote from: "nekonoko"Hello!

I just updated a scsi2sd to firmware 4.5 on a Mac today. Here's what I did:

Download scsi2sd-util:

http://www.codesrc.com/files/scsi2sd/latest/mac/scsi2sd-util

This is the file you need to set the execute bit on in the terminal via:

"chmod a+x scsi2sd-util"

Next, you need the 4.5 firmware file. Download:

http://www.codesrc.com/files/scsi2sd/latest/firmware/firmware_bundle-v4.5.00.scsi2sd

Once the execute bit has been set on "scsi2sd-util", just double click it to launch.

From the "File" menu, choose "Upgrade Firmware". Point to the "firmware_bundle-v4.5.00.scsi2sd" file you downloaded earlier. It will then update the firmware.

I'm sure there would be a lot less confusing if they offered a zipped version of the executables so the file attributes are preserved. Not sure why they thought it best to offer raw binaries like that.

Awesome many thanks that worked !

Quote from: "nekonoko"
I'm sure there would be a lot less confusing if they offered a zipped version of the executables so the file attributes are preserved. Not sure why they thought it best to offer raw binaries like that.

"They" is just Michael McMaster. I'm sure he will listen to your feedback if you drop him an email.

Quote from: "bobo68"
"They" is just Michael McMaster. I'm sure he will listen to your feedback if you drop him an email.

I can confirm. He's a super cool guy and has sent me custom firmware on request before we had the ability to adjust the cylinder count.

I just figured there's some reason for doing it that way, I just don't happen to know what it is.

Quote from: "barcher174"

Quote from: "bobo68"
"They" is just Michael McMaster. I'm sure he will listen to your feedback if you drop him an email.

I can confirm. He's a super cool guy and has sent me custom firmware on request before we had the ability to adjust the cylinder count.

Hello NeXT Community: I'm having fun learning all this stuff , if i sound like I'm bitching about it I'm not a few Thomas Edison quotes:

Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.
&
Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.
& my favorite :
I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.

.... so I'm going to contact Mike McMaster , this should be kind of fun kind of like the NeXT rebel's in Starwars breathing new life into the aging NeXT fleet.

I think a few tweaks here and there and it'll make this go a heck of a lot easier like perhaps  config templates you just copy and paste in to get the sd cards to easily initialize on NeXT boxes for custom installs and actual scsisd2 util apps that launch verse having to use terminal commands in MAC OSX .

I'm still trying to figure out how scsi2sd util software using (figured out the firmware update part thanks for the help nekonoko).
So now with Firmware Version 4.5 , how do I use a custom config file as the scsisd util software appears to have changed to save a config file from earlier versions to have it look at my config file in Mac OSX , I did have success  in Windows 10 copying and saving the config file from Slateblue and I think it was firmware version 4.4.  

Does it have to be an xml config file in OSX for it to in theory work to copy my experimental templates?   Or should a flash it back to the earlier scsisd2 util software version version that had the save config file feature.  Or is it just a matter of tricking it to boot by spoofing drive parameters .....  has anyone successfully created a 9gb NeXT image on a 16gb Microsd card to work with the scsisd2 card ?

I'll proactively working on this so I may wind up answering my own questions but always appreciate any time savers in the reality distortion field!

It looks like it is maxed at 4gb but I'll ask him about the possibility of a 9gb image basically a 2gb smaller partition with ~ 4 * 1.5 gb partitions  as  it'll be fun to make a super ISO with either NeXTSTEP 3.3 User, dev and y2k or openstep 4.2 user, developer and Y2k patches with a kind of best of apps from all the cd's , I'm thinking it would need to be on a 16Gb micro sd .

Any help on this appreciated , I have unique permission from Apple legal and procured  rights of reproduction and distribution to a lot of the original NeXT 3rd party cd's and developers to do this , we also have some really nice 3rd party software that was released free aka lighthouse apps . The thought is it will double the apps I currently have on my 4gb's and is a really nice solution taking these NeXT's into the future.  I have probably 1000 scsi hard drives here at least in various states from completely doa to pristine but I like the scsisd2 as a better alternative solution moving forward.  
It'll help keep the lights on at Black hole , keeps me reinvesting in the NeXT community and as usual will be a great turnkey deal for all!

You're further along than I am :)

Right now I'm weighing options on how best to clone/copy my existing spinning platter NeXT drives to SD. I don't have a machine with PCI slots at the moment for use with add-on SCSI cards (just PCIe slots around here), so am planning to research some other connection options (USB/Firewire to SCSI perhaps?). Or maybe it would be better to just ship my drives to someone who does have the proper machine/cards at hand to do a 'dd' to a SD card.

Also thinking about doing a bare-metal install from CD-ROM, but will need to find an external SCSI CD-ROM someplace. I might have one in storage, not sure.

Quote from: "nekonoko"You're further along than I am :)

Right now I'm weighing options on how best to clone/copy my existing spinning platter NeXT drives to SD. I don't have a machine with PCI slots at the moment for use with add-on SCSI cards (just PCIe slots around here), so am planning to research some other connection options (USB/Firewire to SCSI perhaps?). Or maybe it would be better to just ship my drives to someone who does have the proper machine/cards at hand to do a 'dd' to a SD card.

Also thinking about doing a bare-metal install from CD-ROM, but will need to find an external SCSI CD-ROM someplace. I might have one in storage, not sure.

I'm thinking of offering a clone or recovery service to sd for existing drives and even for damaged drives as I have good friends here in town that have a clean room and a lot of really nice hardware to accomplish this but it can be spendy using them depending on the state of the drives as it isn't easy for the more critical cases.....

I have some used scsi cdrom external drives for sale as well or I often use a slab with internal power splitter  and multiple connector scsi cable to do some installs  , I've even used NeXT's network install feature .... it actually says excuse me while I kiss the sky then installs on multiple networked NeXT boxes and yes  I have older NeXT compatible intel hardware with pci slots , scsi controllers , next compatible etc or use the tools on the freeware hyrens cd and an adaptec controller in an old dell box and boot from hyrens on an eide cdrom drive in the dell, it is tricky to figure out but works.  
I would have to figure out a fair flat rate for the service for both, I've done this in the past but with this new solution we don't actually need to find an identical drive , we just configure scsisd2 to trick the adaptec , hyrens , NeXT or other operating systems into thinking drive A the original is a clone match to drive B  in software totally cool and I'm starting to see the forest through the trees.

Oh that's a good point - NeXTSTEP has 'dd' as well. I could probably just hang the scsi2sd off the external SCSI port and clone the internal drive that way.

Just curious, do you have any NeXT badged external CD-ROM drives for sale?