QLogic KZPBA-CX PCI Ultra-Wide SCSI: how to format large (>8GB) drives?

[rhubarbe0]

Hello SCSI experts,


I have acquired a QLogic KZPBA-CX PCI Ultra-Wide SCSI controller.
I plan to connect 18GB and 36GB hard drives to it. These drives are
68-pins, so they are wide. I first low-level format the drive,
but when I run FDISK (DOS/Windows) and tell to use all available
space, it creates a 8025 MB partition (about 8GB) and claims it is
100% of the total space there is. Even 9GB reports to be 8025MB.


I have 2 older controllers which are both 50-pin only (Narrow):
PCI Adaptec 2940: Same 8025MB problem, can't go beyond, BIOS date
1994.
ISA Adaptec 1540: This one, surprisingly can recognize full 18GB
on a drive and formats no problem, but is very
slow. BIOS date 1995.


The QLOGIC has a BIOS date 1997, BIOS revision is 4.15 and the
FAST!UTIL version is 1.27.


Do I need a special driver to format my 18GB and 36GB drives
to full capacity on QLogic controller? or a BIOS upgrade?
I know not all Narrow controllers could handle that, since they're
older, but I would expect all Ultra-W controllers could format
to more than 8GB.


Thanks in advance for your help.
Luc

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

Hello SCSI experts,

I have acquired a QLogic KZPBA-CX PCI Ultra-Wide SCSI controller.
I plan to connect 18GB and 36GB hard drives to it. These drives are
68-pins, so they are wide. I first low-level format the drive,
but when I run FDISK (DOS/Windows) and tell to use all available
space, it creates a 8025 MB partition (about 8GB) and claims it is
100% of the total space there is. Even 9GB reports to be 8025MB.

So it is using CHS addressing, regular Int13.

I have 2 older controllers which are both 50-pin only (Narrow):
PCI Adaptec 2940: Same 8025MB problem, can't go beyond, BIOS date
1994.
ISA Adaptec 1540: This one, surprisingly can recognize full 18GB
on a drive and formats no problem, but is very
slow. BIOS date 1995.

And if you look closely to the setup utilities you'll probably find what
makes the difference.

The QLOGIC has a BIOS date 1997, BIOS revision is 4.15 and the
FAST!UTIL version is 1.27.

So probably you missed something in Setup in regard to the 8GB
CHS addressing limit.

Do I need a special driver to format my 18GB and 36GB drives
to full capacity on QLogic controller?
Nope.

or a BIOS upgrade?

Maybe. A bit unlikely.

I know not all Narrow controllers could handle that,
since they're older,

An Ultra narrow is obviously younger than a Fast wide.

but I would expect all Ultra-W controllers could format
to more than 8GB.

So do Ultra narrow.