As indicated in my last post, I am now attempting to convert my SGI systems to BlueSCSI Ultra-Wide.
Now it's time to tackle my SGI O2 and Octane 2 systems... they are still running old spinning rust, so I'll have to start from scratch on how to do that.
I am starting with the Octane 2. It is currently configured with three 72GB drives, the root drive and a striped set mounted as /Data.
The Octane has three internal drive bays, and the SCSI ID is associated with the bay number (1-3).
I created two .hda files, a 73GB for the root, and a 146GB for Data.
I removed all the SCSI disks from the Octane, installed the BlueSCSI in drive bay 2 and booted to the PROM command monitor, where I was able to successfully use fx to label the images: drive 2 was configured for root (bootable) and drive 3 as a option drive (non-bootable).
These operations succeeded. Everything after failed with various SCSI parity errors.
First I tried mkfs to create an xfs file system on the drives. SCSI parity error.
I then went through several permutations of attempting to dd disk1 to disk2, all of which failed with parity errors.
Finally, I booted from the original root disk with the BlueSCSI in drive bay 2 to attempt to get some info about the virtual drives and perhaps init them from within Irix.
These pics will save a lot of typing:
What is of note is that the disks appear on the desktop as uninitialized (this is expected), they appear in Disk Manager, and I can attempt to initialize them from Disk Panel.
This pic shows error code 256 :
Error code 256 basically means fx exited with a non-0 exit code (failure).
The console shows the following:
Code:
%hinv -c disk
Integral SCSI controller 0: Version QL1840B (rev. 2), single ended
Disk drive: unit 1 on SCSI controller 0
Disk drive: unit 2 on SCSI controller 0
Disk drive: unit 3 on SCSI controller 0
% dksc0d2vol: [Alert] Aborted command: SCSI interface parity error (asc=0x47, asq=0x0), Block #0
dksc8d2vol: retrying request
…
dksc8d2vol: [Alert] Aborted command: SCSI interface parity error (asc=0x47, asq=0x0), Block #0
|$(3)dksc0d2vol: I/O error, retries exhausted
bluescsi.ini (text in red indicates settings I've tried after first getting the parity errors):
Rich (BB code):
[SCSI]
Quirks=0
EnableSCSI2=0
EnableUnitAttention=0
EnableParity=1
SpeedGrade="TurboMax"
MaxSyncSpeed=20
System="Generic"
[SCSI2]
Vendor = “SEAGATE”
Product = “ST173404LCV”
Version = “BD0A”
Serial = “3CE0R0HM”
HeadsPerCylinder = 4
SectorsPerTrack = 718
[SCSI3]
Vendor = “SEAGATE”
Product = “ST3146855SS”
Version = “S527”
Serial = “3LN311B7”
HeadsPerCylinder = 8
SectorsPerTrack = 718
log.txt (note garbled text in red):
Rich (BB code):
Platform: BlueSCSI Ultra (Wide)
FW Version: 2026.04.27-rel Apr 28 2026 00:35:26
Flash chip size: 16384 kB
SCA Model Detected, Assigned SCSI ID: 2
=== Bootloader Log ===
[0ms] Bootloader version: Apr 28 2026 00:35:10 BlueSCSI Ultra
[0ms] Looking for firmware: BlueSCSI_Ultra_Wide*.bin
[326ms] Bootloader continuing to main firmware
=== End Bootloader Log ===
Clocking to standard I2S-compatible base speed
Reclocking with these settings are compatible with CD audio playback
Initial Clock set to 150MHz
Reclocking the MCU to 155MHz
Setting the SDIO clock to 26MHz
After reclocking, system reports clock set to 155MHz
BlueSCSI CD Audio enabled - requires DAC
SD Config Result: 0x3F
SDIO 1.8v High Speed, Mode D
=== SD Card Info ===
SD card detected, exFAT volume size: 244080 MB
SD Name: SR256, MID: 0x03 (SanDisk), OID: "SD" (0x53 0x44)
-- EnableSCSI2 = No
-- SpeedGrade = TurboMax
Speed grade set to TurboMax reclocking system
Reclocking with these settings are compatible with CD audio playback
Initial Clock set to 155MHz
Reclocking the MCU to 251MHz
Setting the SDIO clock to 50MHz
After reclocking, system reports clock set to 251MHz
======== Reinitializing BlueSCSI after reclock ========
SD Config Result: 0xD3
SDIO 1.8v Ultra Speed, Mode D
=== Global Config ===
Reading configuration from bluescsi.ini
-- EnableSCSI2 = No
-- SpeedGrade = TurboMax
Using system preset "Generic"
=== Finding images ===
[SCSI2]
-- SectorsPerTrack = 718
-- HeadsPerCylinder = 4
-- Vendor = “SEAGA
-- Product = ‚ÄúST173404LCV‚Ä
-- Version = “B
-- Serial = “3CE0R0HM”
[SCSI3]
-- SectorsPerTrack = 718
-- HeadsPerCylinder = 8
-- Vendor = “SEAGA
-- Product = ‚ÄúST3146855SS‚Ä
-- Version = “S
-- Serial = “3LN311B7”
=== Finding images in / ===
[SCSI2]
-- SectorsPerTrack = 718
-- HeadsPerCylinder = 4
-- Vendor = “SEAGA
-- Product = ‚ÄúST173404LCV‚Ä
-- Version = “B
-- Serial = “3CE0R0HM”
== Opening /HD20_512_root_73GB.hda for ID:2 LUN:0
---- INFO: Image file is fragmented (11 fragments), FastSeek enabled for best performance.
---- Configuring as disk drive
[SCSI3]
-- SectorsPerTrack = 718
-- HeadsPerCylinder = 8
-- Vendor = “SEAGA
-- Product = ‚ÄúST3146855SS‚Ä
-- Version = “S
-- Serial = “3LN311B7”
== Opening /HD30_512_data_146GB.hda for ID:3 LUN:0
---- Configuring as disk drive
== Platform supports ROM drive up to 12284 kB
=== Configured SCSI Devices ===
ID: 2, BlockSize: 512, Type: Fixed, Quirks: None, Size: 74752000kB
ID: 3, BlockSize: 512, Type: Fixed, Quirks: None, Size: 149504000kB
Clock set to: 251MHz
Initialization complete!
INFO: Pico Voltage: 3.303V.
SCSI ID 2 negotiated bus width 1 (16 bits)
SCSI ID 2 negotiated synchronous mode 42 MB/s (period 4x12 ns, offset 8 bytes)
...
SCSI ID 3 negotiated bus width 1 (16 bits)
SCSI ID 3 negotiated synchronous mode 42 MB/s (period 4x12 ns, offset 8 bytes)
...
(these line repeat for a while)
I am guessing there is some setting I am missing that prevents the images from being initialized after creating the labels and partitions, any ideas?
Thx,
-k
