SUMMARY - Using NEC CDR-72 on Sun Workstations

From: Roger Chaplin (chaplin@keinstr.uucp)
Date: Thu Sep 17 1992 - 07:27:28 CDT


In article 4201@keinstr.uucp, I wrote:
>I have an NEC CDR-72 CD-ROM reader connected to the SCSI bus on my
>Sparcstation SLC (running SunOS 4.1.2). It is the only device on the
>bus and is properly terminated.
>When I do this, the disc spins and I get the following messages:
> booting from sd(0,6,2)
> Bad magic number in disk label!
> The file just loaded does not appear to be executable.
>
>I have called Sun technical support, and what their engineer told me
>basically is, "It's not a Sun drive: if it works, great; if it doesn't,
>you're on your own."
>
>Has anybody ever successfully used one of these NEC drives on a Sun
>workstation? Does anybody have any ideas what I need to do to get this
>to work? I would appreciate any help anyone can give. Responses via
>e-mail and I'll post the outcome if anybody wants me to.

First, thanks to all who responded.

The gist of the answers is that a CD-ROM drive needs special firmware
to operate with a Unix system. Sun drives, plus some from Sony, have
this special firmware. This special firmware enables the drive to use
a block size of 512 bytes.

One respondant stated that, although I cannot boot the machine from the
NEC drive, I should still be able to read CD-ROMs in it after booting
from another device. In practice I have found this to not be the
case. I have been unable to mount a CD-ROM filesystem on the NEC
drive.

So, it appears the NEC drive cannot be used on a Sun workstation.

-- 
Roger Chaplin / Instruments Division Engineering / "Worry does not empty
chaplin@keinstr.uucp / CI$: 76307,3506          / tomorrow of sorrow -
#include <disclaimer.h>                        / it empties today of strength."
#include "disclaimer.h" /* cover all bases */ /               - Corrie ten Boom



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