[1246] in linux-scsi channel archive
Re: NCR SCSI newbie query
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Gerard Roudier)
Thu Jan 9 15:32:47 1997
Date: Thu, 9 Jan 1997 21:22:04 +0000 (GMT)
From: Gerard Roudier <groudier@club-internet.fr>
To: Gary Kahn <gkahn@erols.com>
cc: linux-scsi@vger.rutgers.edu
In-Reply-To: <32D45CE5.36C8531C@erols.com>
On Wed, 8 Jan 1997, Gary Kahn wrote:
> I'm considering buying the NCR/Symbios 53C810-based card sold by SWT.
> When I looked in the kernel SCSI headers, I found a pre-purchase
> question. The 53C810 support said something about "requires flash BIOS"
> since the SCSI card has no BIOS of its own.
You perhaps read this in the ncr53c8xx.c source file.
In fact the BIOS is only required in order to be able boot
a system located on a scsi disk driven by a NCR53C810 based board.
It is generally the case. I will make this comment more accurate.
> Can I buy the 53C810-based card for use with my generic PCI-based
> Pentium machine? Or do I need further information about the machine
> first? The LILO boot sector will remain on my existing IDE drive, but I
> may at some point want to have the root partition and the kernel
> executable on a SCSI drive attached to the new SCSI card.
>
The LILO boot sector uses BIOS to load the loader and/or the kernel.
If your system does not have NCR BIOS, you can put the LILO and
the kernel image on your IDE disk.
Another solution is probably to install the NCR BIOS file and/or a
DOS driver for the 810 under DOS and to use loadlin.
(I never tried it, but I think that should work)
The best solution is obviously to have the NCR BIOS installed
somewhere in your system.
Are you sure, your BIOS does not incorporate the NCR BIOS?
You should contact the manufacturer of your mainboard, or have a
look at their web site (if it exists).
Gerard.
