That is not quite correct.  The ID field in IODFAULT is useful, inasmuch as
people who buy disk drives according to IODFAULT lists can easily use it in
SYSGEN to configure a drive.  The ID is still critical for non-SCSI devices.

My main point is that when it comes to SCSI disk drives, there are only 2 (two)
different entries.  There is one for SE  Fast SCSI-2 disk drives and another
one for Differential F/W SCSI-2 disk drives.  As I said earlier, and what Stan
also pointed out independently, is that there should only be two entries for
all SCSI disk drives in IODFAULT.  I go even further and say there is only the
need for 2 SCSI tape drive entries, an SE DDS entry and a FW DLT (and probably
DDS-4) entry.

The SCSI-2 standard provides for interrogation of the SCSI device and SCSI
makes all disk drives addressable as logical block addresses.  Therefore the
geometry of the drive is no longer important.

Kind regards,

Denys. . .

Denys Beauchemin
HICOMP
(800) 323-8863  (281) 288-7438         Fax: (281) 355-6879
denys at hicomp.com                             www.hicomp.com


-----Original Message-----
From:   [log in to unmask] [SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
Sent:   Thursday, July 06, 2000 5:17 PM
To:     [log in to unmask]; [log in to unmask]
Subject:        Re: Seagate vs HP firmware on ST34573

Denys chastises:

> Sigh.  Ok, let me put it more plainly.  You wasted a lot of time figuring
out
>  what kind of disk drive you had.  As I explained, probably not well, with
> SCSI
>  devices on MPE, the only thing you really need to know is if the device is
> SE
>  or Differential.  If the disk is Single Ended, you know where to plug it
in
> and
>  you use any of the SE disk IDs from IODFAULT.PUB.SYS.  The disk will come
up
>  and be usable.

I know that now , but at the time, I didn't. And that was the time waster --
figuring out that SYSGEN's device ID field is nowadays essentially ignored,
even though the IODFAULT file is filled with choices for you use, with even
more choices apparently available on the system (such as the Quantum
Fireball), but not listed.

Wirt ("IODFAULT lies in ourselves, not in our stars") Atmar