. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
ST9550 Family:
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
ST9550AG
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
ST9385AG
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
AT Interface Drives
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Installation Guide
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Contents
Read before you begin
Configuring the drive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Attaching cables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Mounting the drive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Configuring the computer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Formatting and partitioning the drive . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Installation troubleshooting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Compatibility notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Technical support services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Shipping and storing your drive . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
© 1994 Seagate Technology, Inc. All rights reserved
Publication Number: 36251-001, Rev. A
January 1994
Seagate
registered trademarks of Seagate Technology, Inc. SeaFAX,
SeaFONE, SeaBOARD and SeaTDD are trademarks of
Seagate Technology, Inc. Other product names are registered
trademarks or trademarks of their owners.
Seagate reserves the right to change, without notice, product
offerings or specifications. No part of this publication may be
reproduced in any form without written permission from Seagate
Technology, Inc.
®
, Seagate Technology® and the Seagate logo are
... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
ST9550 Family Installation Guide, Rev. A 1
Read before you begin
Application. Your drive is designed for IBM AT and compatible
personal computers, particularly laptop and notebook models.
Warning. Turn off the computer (and, if you have a notebook or
laptop computer, remove the battery) before you open
the case or touch any internal components.
Caution. Special training or tools may be needed to service
laptop and notebook computers. Opening the case
may void your warranty. Review the terms and conditions of your warranty before opening the case.
Static discharge. Observe the following precautions:
• Keep the drive in its static-shielded bag until you are ready to
complete the installation. Do not attach any cables to the drive
while it is in its static-shielded bag.
• Handle the drive by its edges or frame.
• Do not touch the I/O connector pins or the circuit board.
• Before handling any components, put on a grounded wrist
strap.
• Use antistatic padding on all work surfaces.
• Avoid static-inducing carpeted areas.
Drive handling. The drive is extremely fragile—handle it with
care. Do not attach labels to any part of the drive.
Inspection. Once you are familiar with the handling precautions
listed above, inspect the drive. If it appears to be damaged, call
your distributor or dealer immediately.
Warranty. See your authorized Seagate
...
®
distributor or dealer.
2 ST9550 Family Installation Guide, Rev. A
Maintenance and repair. Seagate drives do not require maintenance. The head/disc assembly is sealed; if you break the seal,
you void the warranty. Seagate customer service centers are the
only facilities authorized to repair Seagate drives. Seagate does
not sanction any third-party repair facilities.
Configuring the drive
1. Put on a grounded wrist strap. Wear the grounded wrist
strap throughout the installation procedure.
2. Install master/slave jumpers. In a two-drive system, you need
to designate one drive as the master, or drive 0, and the other
drive as the slave, or drive 1. This is done by installing the
master/slave jumpers as shown in Figure 1. In a one-drive
system, configure the drive as a master (no jumpers installed).
Alternatively, you can configure the drive as a master or slave
using the cable select option. This requires a specialized
daisy-chain cable that grounds pin 28 (CSEL) on one of its
two drive connectors. If you attach the drive to the grounded
CSEL connector, it becomes a master. If you attach the drive
to the ungrounded CSEL connector, it becomes a slave. To
use this option, the host system and both drives must support
cable select.
To configure an ST9550 family drive for cable select, install
both master/slave jumpers. The drive consumes more power
in this configuration because more jumpers are installed.
Attaching cables
This drive is designed for a host computer that supplies interface
signals and +5V power through a single 44-pin connector and
cable. If your computer has a fixed connector that attaches
Master/slave
configuration jumpers
Circuit board
Pin 1
Pin 20 removed for keying
Note. Drive is shown with
circuit board up.
B D
A C
Drive is master; slave may be detected using DASP– signal
Drive is master; Seagate slave drive present
Drive is slave; Seagate master drive present
Use CSEL pin grounding to differentiate master from slave
ST9550 Family Installation Guide, Rev. A 3
Figure 1. ATA interface connector and master/slave
configuration jumpers
4 ST9550 Family Installation Guide, Rev. A
directly to the drive, skip ahead to the following section, “Mounting
the drive.” Otherwise, perform the following steps:
1. Turn off the computer and remove the battery.
2. Put on a grounded wrist strap.
3. Open the case of your computer. See your system manual
for instructions.
Caution. Opening the case may void your computer’s warranty.
4. Connect the 44-pin interface/power cable. Match pin 1 of
the cable to pin 1 of the interface connectors on the drive and
on the computer. Pin 1 is usually denoted by a stripe along
one edge of the cable. The location of pin 1 on the drive
interface connector is shown in Figure 1 on page 3. The cable
should be no longer than 18 inches (0.457 meters).
Caution. The printed circuit cables used in some laptop com-
puters are delicate. Be careful not to tear them.
Mounting the drive
Mount the drive securely in the computer using M3X0.5 metric
screws in the four bottom mounting holes or the four side
mounting holes. You can mount the drive in any orientation. Be
careful not to strain or crimp the interface/power cable.
Caution. To prevent damage to the drive:
• Be careful not to bend the drive connector pins, especially
when plugging the drive into a fixed connector.
• Use mounting screws of the correct size and length.
• Gently tighten the mounting screws—do not apply more than
3 inch-pounds of torque.
ST9550 Family Installation Guide, Rev. A 5
Note. This drive meets industry-standard MCC mounting speci-
fications. When installing this drive in a fixed-mounting
application, you must use MCC-compatible connectors
and mounting hardware. If the mounting holes in your
computer do not line up with the mounting holes on the
drive, your computer may not be MCC-compatible.
Configuring the computer
Before your computer can recognize a new drive, you must enter
basic information about the drive into the computer’s long-term
memory (usually a battery-powered CMOS chip). This information is used by the system’s basic input/output system (BIOS), to
control the flow of information to and from the drive.
Note. Some newer computers can automatically determine your
drive type and configure themselves appropriately at
startup. Read your system manual to determine whether
this applies to your computer. If so, then skip ahead to the
following section, “Formatting and partitioning the drive.”
In most computers, you must enter the number of cylinders,
heads, and sectors using the system setup program (see page
6). The table below lists data for the ST9550 family drives.
Drive specification ST9550AG ST9385AG
No. cylinders 942 934
No. read/write heads 16 14
No. sectors per track 59 51
Total no. sectors 889,248 666,876
Bytes per sector 512 512
Capacity (Mbytes)
BIOS calculated 434 325
Usable 455 341
6 ST9550 Family Installation Guide, Rev. A
To configure your system BIOS, follow these steps:
1. Turn on your computer.
2. Run the system setup program. This program configures
the system BIOS to recognize your drive. In some computers
you run the system setup program by pressing special keys
while the computer is booting up. In other computers, you can
run the program from the DOS prompt. See your system
documentation for more information.
3. Enter your drive specifications. Within the system setup
program, there are three possible ways that you can enter
your drive’s specifications. These are listed below in order of
increasing complexity.
• Select a predefined drive type. Most system setup pro-
grams provide a long list of predefined drive types. Select a
drive type with specifications that match those of your drive
(refer to the table on page 5).
• Specify a
system setup program doesn’t list a predefined drive type
that matches your drive specifications, you may be able to
define a custom or user-defined drive type. You can then
enter your drive specifications (from the table on page 5).
When you enter drive specifications for a custom or user-defined
drive type, the setup program should display a drive capacity less
than or equal to the
5. This value is slightly lower than the usable drive capacity.
• Allow your drive to emulate or
predefined drive types. If none of the predefined drive
types exactly matches your drive, and your system setup
program does not allow you to specify a custom drive type,
custom
or
user-defined
BIOS calculated capacity
drive type. If the
in the table on page
translate
one of the
ST9550 Family Installation Guide, Rev. A 7
your drive may be able to emulate one of the predefined
drive types.
Select a predefined drive type that meets the following requirements: 1) The capacity must be
BIOS calculated capacity (listed in the table on page 5); 2) There
must be no more than 16 read/write heads or 63 sectors per track;
and 3) The total number of sectors should not exceed the number
of cylinders times the number of read/write heads times the
number of sectors per track:
Total sectors per drive
less than or equal to
≤
the drive’s
(No. cylinders) × (No. read/write heads) × (No. sectors per track).
If you are not sure which drive type to select, try running the
FINDTYPE.EXE utility program. This program is available from
Seagate’s Technical Support services (on the SeaBOARD BBS).
Caution. Write down the drive type that you have selected and
any drive specifications that you have entered (use the
Notes page at the end of this manual). Keep this
information in a safe place. You will need it to retrieve
data from the disc if your CMOS battery fails.
Formatting and partitioning the drive
Caution. Formatting or partitioning a drive that contains data
destroys that data. Make sure all data has been safely
backed up before repartitioning or reformatting a drive.
Seagate Technology assumes no liability for lost data.
Low-level formatting
Seagate AT Interface drives are low-level formatted at the factory
and do not require additional low-level formatting prior to use.
8 ST9550 Family Installation Guide, Rev. A
Partitioning
The partitioning process subdivides a single disc drive into
partitions that behave as separate logical drives (labeled C, D,
E, etc.). You can also set up the entire disc as a single partition.
Note. If you are using a version of DOS prior to Version 4.0, the
operating system cannot access more than 32 Mbytes in
a single partition. Therefore, you must divide a drive with
a capacity of over 32 Mbytes into several smaller partitions. We do not recommend using ST9550 family drives
with DOS versions prior to Version 3.3.
1. Restart your computer. Boot up the computer using a
diskette that contains DOS system files.
2. Run the FDISK program. Insert a DOS program diskette
containing the FDISK program into your diskette drive. At the
DOS prompt, type FDISK, press the Enter key, then follow the
directions on the screen to create one or more partitions. See
your DOS manual for details. If you are partitioning a drive that
will be used to boot the computer, make sure that the primary
partition is marked active.
High-level formatting
High-level formatting verifies the information written by the lowlevel format and creates file allocation tables used to catalog and
access files.
1. Run the FORMAT program. Insert a DOS program diskette
containing the FORMAT program into your diskette drive. At
the DOS prompt, type FORMAT, followed by the drive letter
for the first drive partition (for example, FORMAT C:); then
press the Enter key. Repeat this procedure to format each of
the new drive partitions you have created. Consult your DOS
manual for FORMAT command options.
ST9550 Family Installation Guide, Rev. A 9
Note. If you are formatting the drive partition that will be used to
boot your computer (the “C” drive), copy the DOS system
files to this drive. To do this, type /s after the format
command (for example, FORMAT C: /s)
2. Verify the drive capacity. After high-level formatting a drive,
you can verify the usable drive capacity by running the DOS
CHKDSK utility program.
Installation troubleshooting
Before calling Seagate Technical Support, please read and consider all the possibilities discussed below. The suggestions presented here will resolve the vast majority of installation problems.
General troubleshooting techniques
The following is a list of general troubleshooting techniques.
Procedures for resolving specific problems are provided on
subsequent pages.
Warning. Always turn off the computer before changing jump-
ers, moving cables or touching any internal components.
• Verify hardware compatibility. Check the documentation
for your drive, host adapter and computer to confirm that these
components are compatible.
• Verify your hardware configuration. Check the documen-
tation for your drive, host adapter and computer to confirm
that all jumpers are set appropriately.
• Check all cables. Make sure that all cables are securely
connected. Printed circuit and ribbon cables are quite fragile.
Check to see that they have not been crimped or damaged.
10 ST9550 Family Installation Guide, Rev. A
Make sure that pin 1 of the interface cable is connected to pin
1 of the interface connector on the drive and on the computer.
Most ribbon cables have a stripe down one side to designate
pin 1. The location of pin 1 on the drive interface connector is
shown in Figure 1 on page 3.
• Check all cards. If your computer has expansion cards,
check to see that they are inserted completely into their slots
on the motherboard and are secured with appropriate mounting screws. Make sure that full-size (16-bit) cards are not
plugged into half-size (8-bit) slots.
• Verify the BIOS drive type. Check to make sure that you
entered the correct drive type or translation geometry in the
BIOS setup program. The drive capacity and number of
sectors specified in the BIOS must not exceed the specifications shown in the table on page 5. If the drive type is incorrect,
you must re-run the system setup program, then partition and
high-level format the drive again.
• Check for I/O address conflicts. To isolate an address
conflict, first verify that the drive and host adapter are compatible with your system by disconnecting all other peripherals
except the video card. Then install the drive and host adapter,
and test the system. Next, install the other peripherals, one at
a time, until the conflict reappears. After you have isolated the
source of the address conflicts, you can resolve the conflict
by changing the I/O address of the peripheral that appears to
cause the conflict.
• Check the power supply. The output of your power supply
may not be sufficient to meet the power requirements of the
new devices you have installed. If you are not sure whether
your power supply meets your system requirements, consult
your computer dealer or distributor.
ST9550 Family Installation Guide, Rev. A 11
• Check your DOS version. You must use the same version
of DOS throughout all phases of building and configuring your
system.
• Check for viruses.
checking program to scan your system, hard discs and any
suspect diskettes for viruses. Run the virus-checking program
if you encounter inexplicable disc errors or damage to disc
partitions. Also, before installing any new software, scan the
installation diskettes for viruses.
Use the latest version of a reliable virus-
Specific Troubleshooting Procedures
Methods for resolving specific drive installation problems are
listed on the following pages. These methods incorporate many
of the general troubleshooting techniques described in the previous section.
The screen remains blank when you power up the computer.
• Make sure the monitor is plugged in and turned on.
• Check all cards. Make sure the video card is seated in its slot
and secured with mounting screws.
• Check all cables. Make sure the video card cables (if any) are
securely attached.
• Power down the computer and remove the drive host adapter.
If the screen comes on after you reboot, the host adapter may
be incompatible or defective. If so, see your dealer.
At startup, the computer does not recognize the presence
of the drive.
• Check all cables.
• Check jumper settings on all drives.
• Check the power supply.
12 ST9550 Family Installation Guide, Rev. A
• Reboot the computer and make sure the drive spins up. If your
drive is very quiet, you may not be able to hear it spin up. In
this case, check the drive activity LED if your computer has
one. If the drive does not spin up, check the drive cables again.
• Verify the BIOS drive type.
• Check for I/O address conflicts.
• Try a warm boot. Press the Ctrl, Alt and Delete keys simulta-
neously to reboot the computer without turning off the power.
If a warm boot causes a previously unrecognized drive to
become recognized, there may be a timing problem, in which
the drive fails to become ready before the host completes its
power-on self-test.
One possible solution is to power up your computer with its
processor set at low speed (see your computer manual for
details on setting processor speed). After the computer is up
and running, return your processor to high speed or turbo
mode. Another option is to warm-boot your computer after
every power-on. You may also be able to solve this problem
by upgrading your system BIOS.
The dealer partitioned and high-level formatted the drive for
you in the store. Later, you installed the drive and it does
not work.
• Reboot the computer and make sure the drive spins up.
• Check all cables.
• Check the power supply.
• Check your DOS version. Call your dealer to make sure the
DOS version the dealer used to partition and high-level format
the drive is the same as the version you have installed on your
computer.
ST9550 Family Installation Guide, Rev. A 13
• Verify the BIOS drive type. When you run the system setup
program on your computer, you must specify the same BIOS
drive type or translation geometry that the dealer used.
• Check for memory conflicts.
• Check for viruses.
During the FDISK program, you get an error message warning of an attempt to write to track 0 or to the boot sector; the
message may also suggest that a virus is present.
• This occurs in systems having a virus-protection scheme that
does not allow programs to modify the boot sector of the disc.
See your system manual for details. To avoid the problem, run
the system setup program and turn off the virus-protection option.
Then exit system setup and run the FDISK and FORMAT
programs. After all drive partitions are formatted, use the system
setup program to turn virus protection on again.
During the FDISK program, the computer hangs or fails to
create or save the partition record.
• Check all cables.
• The FDISK program on your DOS utilities diskette may be
corrupted. Try running the program from a different diskette.
• If you are using a version of DOS prior to Version 4.0, make
the drive partitions smaller than 32 Mbytes.
• Try another drive type or translation geometry. Sometimes the
host BIOS does not accept a particular translation geometry even
though that geometry is listed as an option during system setup.
• Make sure that the host adapter is not assigned an interrupt
that is already in use by another device. Modify the interrupt
jumpers if necessary.
14 ST9550 Family Installation Guide, Rev. A
During the FDISK program, the error message, “No Fixed
Disk Present,” appears.
• Check all cables.
• Check the power supply.
• Reboot the computer and make sure the drive spins up.
• Verify the BIOS drive type.
• Check for I/O address conflicts.
During high-level formatting, the drive keeps finding hard
errors and reporting the following message. “Attempting to
recover allocation units. . .”
• This is normal with DOS Version 4.0 or later. The drive will
format normally. However, after formatting the drive, you may
want to run a third-party surface-scan program to check for
bad sectors.
During high-level formatting, the drive does not format to
full usable capacity.
• Verify the BIOS drive type. Your drive’s formatted capacity is
limited to the capacity of the BIOS geometry you selected. If
your BIOS does not offer a geometry that takes advantage of
the full capacity of the drive, and a user-defined drive type is
not available, use a third-party partitioning utility.
• Run FDISK again and make the partitions smaller. If you are
using a version of DOS prior to Version 4.0, make the drive
partitions smaller than 32 Mbytes.
ST9550 Family Installation Guide, Rev. A 15
At startup, the DOS messages, “Disk Boot Failure,” “NonSystem Disk,” or “No ROM Basic - SYSTEM HALTED,”
appear.
• Run the FDISK program and make sure the primary partition
is marked active.
• Check all cables.
• Check your DOS version.
• Reinstall the DOS system files onto the hard disc using the
SYS command (see your DOS manual).
• Check for viruses.
During operation, the system error message, “Drive not
Ready,” appears.
• Check all cables.
• Check the power supply.
• Reboot the computer and make sure the drive spins up.
Compatibility notes
• The ST9550 family drives conform to the ATA interface specifications. The host system BIOS must provide support for the
ATA interface command set. For a detailed description of the
ATA commands implemented by these drives, see the
gate ST9550 Family Product Manual
Interface Reference Manual
• In accordance with ATA specifications, the system BIOS must
reset any emulation/translation parameters after a hard reset.
• In some configurations, the ST9550 family drives may supply
up to 16 bytes of error correction code (ECC) with the Read
Long and Write Long commands. Depending on the drive
.
and the
Seagate ATA
Sea-
16 ST9550 Family Installation Guide, Rev. A
type, your system BIOS may look for 4 bytes of ECC. If your
system BIOS expects 4 bytes of ECC and the drive supplies
a different number of bytes, some drive diagnostic programs
may fail, typically resulting in time-out errors. Consult your
computer documentation or call your computer dealer or
manufacturer for information on configuring your computer to
receive more than 4 bytes of ECC.
• Some older drive diagnostic programs may incorrectly report
an ECC detection failure when analyzing an ST9550 family
drive. This occurs because the drive hardware corrects the
data automatically, avoiding the error rather than reporting it.
Such a report does not indicate a drive malfunction.
Technical support services
Always consult your disc drive or computer dealer first for technical support. Your dealer has first-hand experience with a wide
variety of system configurations.
Technical support is available for all Seagate products by calling
the SeaFAX, Seagate Technical Support FAX, SeaFONE,
SeaBOARD and SeaTDD services.
SeaFAX. 408/438-2620
You can use a touch-tone telephone to access Seagate’s
automated FAX system to receive technical support information by return FAX. This service is available 24 hours daily.
Seagate Technical Support FAX. 408/438-8137
You can FAX questions or comments to technical support
specialists 24 hours daily. Responses are sent between
8:00
A.M. and 5:00 P.M. (Pacific time), Monday through Friday.
ST9550 Family Installation Guide, Rev. A 17
SeaFONE. 408/438-8222
You can talk to a technical support specialist between
8:00
A.M.
and 5:00
P.M.
(Pacific time), Monday through Friday.
SeaFONE provides recorded technical information on selected Seagate products while you are on hold. You can
access the recordings 24 hours daily. Before calling, note your
computer configuration and drive model number (ST
xxxx
).
SeaBOARD
Using a modem, you can:
• Access documentation, drive specifications and jumper
settings for Seagate’s entire product line.
• Download software for installing and analyzing your drive.
• Request a return phone call from the technical support
staff.
SeaBOARD is available 24 hours daily. It supports communications up to 9,600 baud. Set your communications software
to eight data bits, no parity, and one stop bit (8-N-1). SeaBOARD phone numbers are listed in the following table.
Location Modem number
United States 408-438-8771
Canada 416-856-5581
England 44-62-847-8011
France 33-1-40 67 10 34
Germany 49-89-140-9331
Singapore 65-292-6973
Australia 61-2-756-2359
Korea 82-2-556-7294
18 ST9550 Family Installation Guide, Rev. A
SeaTDD. 408/438-5382
Using a telecommunications device for the deaf (TDD), you can
send questions or comments 24 hours daily and exchange
messages with a technical support specialist between 8:00 A.M.
and 5:00
P.M.
(Pacific time), Monday through Friday
.
Drive
Antistatic bag
Foam
Foam
ST9550 Family Installation Guide, Rev. A 19
Shipping and storing your drive
Keep your original box and packing materials for storing or
shipping your drive. The box has a
label. Shipping a drive in an unapproved container voids the
warranty. Call your authorized Seagate distributor to purchase
additional boxes. Figure 2 shows a drive in an approved singlepack box with all necessary packing materials.
Seagate Approved Package
Figure 2. Seagate 2.5-inch drive and approved packing
materials
Notes
Notes
Seagate Technology, Inc.
920 Disc Drive, Scotts Valley, CA 95066, USA
Publication Number: 36251-001, Rev. A, Printed in USA
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