[SunRescue] Re: 4.5 gig drive in 386i?

[Chris Powell]

On Sun, 1 Apr 2001 21:15:31 +0100, Peter Joules wrote:

> Can I use a 4.5gig Seagate Barracuda drive in my 386i?  It will fit
> physically as it has a 50 pin interface but will the machine handle it?  If
> not then can I use it in my Sun 3?  I am short of working drives for the
> 386i and there is one of these listed (at present cheap) on e-bay in the UK
> at the moment.

IIRC SunOS 4.0.2/.3 (and up to 4.1.1 at least) could only use drives to
1G CAPACITY - any more than this and the drive would loop back on itself -
fill the *drive* over 1G and it starts writing to the first 1G again!
I'm pretty sure this wasn't just partitions, but applied to the drive
capacity itself. Not sure if 4.1.1_U1 (or third-party) updates sorted
this - certainly don't know if SunOS for 386i was done.

You could use the 4.5GB disc, just format it as 1G.

> If this is not any use then what is the maximum size drive which I can use?

I'm using a 424MB in mine - plenty for the OS, other stuff served from
a SS10. This isn't one of the supported 386i drives.

On the subject of 386is. I can't get my 386i to boot without it resetting
the date to the last shutdown time - I believe this is a y2k issue. I get
this message:

TOD clock not initialised -- CHECK AND RESET THE DATE

Setting the year to 1999 and the machine boots and keeps the date set
OK. Setting to 1/1/2000 (hacking the NVRAM or letting the date roll-over)
or later, a later boot will set the date back to the last shutdown (even
if it's 2000 or later). I then use rdate from a SS10 to set the date
correctly. This isn't really a huge problem (I don't use the 386i much),
but if anyone has any ideas....


Chris.