Hello,

Twice in the last week I have had two different all-scsi systems (IWill
boards with Adaptec 7800 series on-board chips) become unbootable.
Nothing I do to reinstall the operating system (NT 4.0, Warp 4, Linux or
even PC-DOS 7.0) will make them bootable. The HDs are an IBM Wide SCSI 2
GB DORS and a Fujitsu SCSI II 500MB.

I can boot from floppy and read from the disks with no problem, but all
I get on boot is a bios message "Booting 1. ......" and that's all. No
data is lost and chkdsk (from Warp) does not show a problem.

I tried reformatting with PC-DOS and using sys c: to put the kernel
files and command.com on the disk, all which works, but the disk will
not boot. There is no evidence of a virus. Another hard disk will boot
without problem.

There are no ID conflicts or termination problems. In fact, nothing was
changed on the hardware of a working system when this happened.

BUT...I could "low-level" format the disk on one of the machines from
the Adaptec Easy SCSI bios utility and it immediately became bootable
again. I have not yet tried this on the second machine as I have to
backup 2 GB of data first and I want to know if there is anything else
to try. I will back up anyway, of course.

My question: Can anyone tell me why this might happen? What does the
"Booting 1. ...." mean? How can a SCSI disk become unbootable? Can the
geometry be changed somehow? I have a lot of machines running (26) with
this configuration and I am beginning to worry that I am going to have a
bunch of problems soon.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions or help.

Respectfully,
Bruce
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        Bruce Boschek - Haus Christiansruh - Nidda, Germany
       Using IBM OS/2 Warp Connect and MR/2ice (Registered)
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