On Tue, 2008-02-05 at 13:54 -0500, William Case wrote: > Hi Les and thanks; > > Your yes and no type answers helps a lot. > > On Tue, 2008-02-05 at 11:07 -0600, Les Mikesell wrote: > > William Case wrote: > > > Hi all and thanks; > > > > > > I find the answers and information you have given me very helpful, but > > > they don't quite get to the basis of the problem. So let me try again. > > > > If you want the really easy version, count the pins in the cable. If > > you have a wide 40-pin connector, possibly with an 80-wire cable, you > > have Parallel ATE (also known as IDE). Scsi would have 50 or 68 pins on > > a connector or 80 on hot-swap SCA connectors that include power. > > > According to my manual I have an IDE connector (40-1 pin PRI_IDE; 40-1 > pin SEC_IDE). > > > >> I have two Maxtor 40 Gb drives and AMD 64 X2 CPU on an ASUS M2NPV-VM > > >> motherboard. I am using F8 as my operating system. > > > > The disk size is another hint. Scsi drives would be 36 Gb, IDE's 40. > > > > >> How come? : > > > > > >> My Hardware browser, under 'IDE Controllers' lists, nVidia Corporation > > >> MCP51 IDE; > > > > That is your controller. > > > > >> while /sys/bus/scsi/devices/ lists my two drives as SCSI > > >> devices. > > > > > > When I look on the bottom of an old drive (from a 4-5 year old machine > > > -- not one of the Maxtors mentioned above, but a Maxtor nonetheless), > > > there are several chips. One of those chips, I assume, contains the > > > SCSI programm, protocol, commands, that interface with the SCSI bus or > > > SCSI bus controller. Or, is one of the chips hardwired to call on a > > > special driver for the harddisk? > > > > The current kernel calls everything scsi. It isn't. > > Oh! > > > > > >> If I look in /dev/disk/by-id they are listed as > > >> "ata-Maxtor-5T040 ..." and "ata-Maxtor-6E040...". > > > > > > To what does the ata in ata-Maxtor ... refer. The hard disk chips or > > > the the MCP51. > > > > The interface type. > > I guess. Still trying to figure out the interface type exactly. > > > > > My question is not about the history of the various chips etc., but is > > > about why do I get three different designations on my computer and how > > > do I disentangle the information being given me so that I know what is > > > what? > > > > You have two hardware designations because you have a controller and > > disks. The third is a lie. > > > So then my disks are SCSI (or something else) and my controller is IDE > (PATA)? If the drives have 40-pin cables and are plugged into your PRI-IDE or SEC-IDE mobo connectors, they're PATA or IDE (which are essentially the same thing). No, you can't plug PATA/IDE drives into a SCSI controller and you can't plug SCSI drives into PATA/IDE controllers. The kernel treats all block-replaceable storage (hard drives, ZIP drives, FLASH drives--basically everything except floppies and CD/DVD drives) as though they're SCSI (regardless of their physical connections). Old kernels separated PATA/IDE drives from SCSI with the "hd" in /dev/hd* names meaning "hard disk" (PATA/IDE) and "sd" meaning "scsi disk". With new kernels, you won't see "/dev/hd*" names any longer, so it may be easier for you to think of the "sd" in /dev/sdXY device names as "storage device" from here on in. > > > I have and I can look up the operation and function of the different > > > designations once untangled, but in all my reading descriptions seem > > > full of contradictions and open ended statements, each on its own making > > > sense, but completely confusing when I try to apply them to my own > > > existing machine. > > > > So far you have not described any actual scsi hardware. > > > > Does your comment mean that there appears to be no truly scsi hardware, > or, does it mean I have failed to find and send to the mailing list some > vital piece of information that I should have sent. If it is the > second, tell me what I should be looking for and where to find it, > please ? > > > -- > Regards Bill > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- - Rick Stevens, Principal Engineer rstevens@xxxxxxxxxxxx - - CDN Systems, Internap, Inc. http://www.internap.com - - - - Time: Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once. - ----------------------------------------------------------------------
