TMC-870 SCSI controller

[m0rda]

Hi all,

Yesterday I have obtained a FutureDomain TMC-870 SCSI card for my 8088 XT clone. Currently I have Seagate ST-296N 80 Meg SCSI-1 HDD attached to ST-01B controller, working and booting fine with it. Next step is to attach a SCSI CD-ROM. Unfortunately, there is no ASPI support for ST-01B and it is not even recognizing CDROM as a SCSI device. That is why I am looking for a SCSI controller that can work with HDD and CD-ROM as well.
To begin with, TMC-870 was not recognizing my HDD at all. But when I removed the "parity" jumper, it was properly detected during the boot. Then I tried to set different SCSI IDs - any of them was properly recognized by controller. Then I added the CD-ROM (again, with parity off) - it also was recognized as valid SCSI device. So far so good
But I still cannot boot from HDD - it says "Missing operating system". I had some trouble attaching a FDD to the controller and booting from floppy. After booting I could see the disk C: and work with files on it.
So now, to make the HDD bootable, I need to low-level format it. It happens when you switch different SCSI controllers. Previously I had to low-level format my HDD for ST-01B after it was used with Adaptec-7880 controller.
I visited Adaptec website and downloaded their utilities for DOS (the package is the same for all ISA cards, like this one http://www.adaptec.com/en-us/downloads/ms/ms_dos/productid=tmc-860m&dn=tmc-860m.html).
Unfortunately, the low-level format tool hangs up when I run it. The same happens with any of SCSI drivers from these packages, if I try to load them.
What am I doing wrong?
Is there any other low-level format utility for FutureDomain TMC-870?
I know TMC-850 supports ASPI, will TMC-870 support it also (the BIOS version is V4.0L)?
What HDD size can I expect to be recognized by this controller?

 

[m0rda]

I was a bit in a hurry posting my questions. I've made some progress since yesterday.
The fact is that Adaptec utilities work fine, but, unfortunately, only with newer PCs. When I attached the controller and HDD to Pentium-150, everything worked: low-level format utilities and SCSI CD-ROM driver FDCD.SYS. Then I attached devices to XT again and it booted successfully. Just as expected.
But here my luck ended - the system hangs when FDCD.SYS is loaded. Perhaps, it is because of some 386 instructions exist in its code. The version of driver I'm using is 4.0 (date - 02 Aug, 1995).
I wonder if somebody here has an older version of PowerSCSI toolkit. I would be glad to test it.

 

[Chuck(G)]

I may have an older version of the Adaptec SCSI tools, but you may also want to look into SCSIWorks from Trantor/Adaptec. Much older technology than the PowerSCSI stuff, so you may find a match there--or not.

I'll have a look in my archives when I get a chance...

 

[m0rda]

No luck trying Trantor SCSIWorks - all the drivers reported incompatible device. So, my hope is for your older version

 

[m0rda]

I was again in a hurry answering Chuck's post. I managed to find the previous version of PowerSCSI here: ftp://ftp.oldskool.org/pub/IBM_PC_BBS/refdisks/powrscsi.exe and FDCD.SYS from that package worked! Now I have a working CD-ROM
My next step will be to locate a large HDD.