Installing the Second SCSI Hard Drive

NOTE: Mention of any particular brand name, product or service on this Web page does not constitute an endorsement by the National Weather Service of that company, product or service. The default SCSI ID numbers for the primary and secondary contoller in the Dell Precision 420 workstation as shipped from the factory are: There is no requirement that SCSI ID numbers be assigned sequentially or that devices be attached to the SCSI cable in order by ID number. However, to keep life simple, I recommend you assign SCSI ID 1 to the new hard drive.

1. Physically Installing The Drive

A. The Seagate Cheeta drive comes from the factory configured with the SCSI ID of 0. Use the J6 connector located on the front of the hard drive to set the SCSI ID of 1. (see figure below).


Since the Seagate Cheeta drive does not have internal terminators, and the Dell workstation uses terminated cables, you do not have to set or disable termination on the drive. After setting the SCSI ID number it will be ready to install.

B. Turn off your computer and peripherals, and make sure that you unplug the computer from its electrical outlet before you remove the computer cover.

C. If you have installed a padlock through the padlock ring on the back panel (item #2 in figure below), remove the padlock and slide the padlock ring to the open position.

D. Facing the left side cover, press the release button (located at the bottom-left corner of the front bezel -- item #1 in figure below) and lift the bottom of the cover, allowing it to pivot up toward you.

E. Disengage the hooks that secure the cover to the top of the chassis, and lift the cover away. Now remove the front bezel by pressing the tab release (#1) marked with the arrow in the figure below. While pressing the tab release, tilt the bezel away from the chassis, disengage the two retaining hooks at the bottom of the bezel (#2 on the figure), and carefully pull the bezel away from the chassis.

F. Disconnect the DC power cable and EIDE cable from the hard drive in the drive bracket and pull the drive door forward and down until the hard-disk drive bracket is ejected halfway out of the chassis (see figure below). Grasp the bracket and pull it completely out of the chassis.

G. Slide the drive into the chosen bay of the bracket, oriented so that the connectors on the back of the drive will face the back of the chassis when the bracket is reinstalled. Align the four screw holes of the drive and bracket. Insert and tighten the screws (see figure below).

H. Reinstall the hard-disk drive bracket in the chassis by inserting the bracket into the drive cage by sliding it in until the tabs snap into place. Rotate the drive door up and toward the chassis until it snaps securely into place. Be sure to fold down the drive door handle so that the bezel can be replaced on the chassis.

I. Attach the SCSI cable (#1 in figure below) to each SCSI device. The connectors on Ultra 160/m low-voltage differential (LVD) SCSI cables are shaped so that they can be attached one way only. Connect a DC power cable (#2 in figure below) to the power input connector on the SCSI device.

J. If you already have installed the combination CD/DVD drive, you should replace the front bezel and computer cover following the steps below.

To replace the bezel, fit the two retaining hooks on the bezel into their corresponding slots at the bottom of the chassis (see figure above). Then rotate the top of the bezel toward the chassis until the top tabs snap into their corresponding slots on the bezel.

To replace the computer cover, perform the following steps:

  1. Check all cable connections, especially those that might have come loose during your work. Fold cables out of the way so that they do not catch on the computer cover. Make sure cables are not routed over the drive cage since they will prevent the cover from closing properly.
  2. Check to see that no tools or extra parts (including screws) are left inside the computer's chassis.
  3. Facing the left side of the computer, hold the cover at a slight angle as shown in the figure above and then align the top of the cover with the top of the chassis.
  4. Insert the three hooks on the cover into the three recessed slots on the computer chassis so that the tabs catch the hooks inside the slots.
  5. Pivot the cover down toward the bottom of the chassis and into position. Make sure the securing hooks at the bottom of the cover click into place.

2. Configuring The Workstation for New SCSI Hard Drive.

Boot the workstation. To reset the chassis intrusion detector, enter System Setup by pressing F2 when prompted in the upper right corner of the screen. Reset the Chassis Intrusion detection.

Scroll down the System Setup screen to System Security.
Type <ENTER>.
Scroll down to Chasis Intrusion.
Use the Space Bar to change the setting to Enabled.

If necessary, update the drive system configuration information in System Setup. After installing a SCSI hard-disk drive, Primary Drive 0 and Primary Drive 1 should be set to None.
(If you have any EIDE devices on the second EIDE channel, such as a CD-ROM or tape drive, Secondary Drive 0 and/or Secondary Drive 1 should be set to Auto. If you have any SCSI devices on the second SCSI channel, Secondary Drive 0 and/or Secondary Drive 1 should be set to None.)

Press <ENTER> then <ESC> to exit System Setup. If prompted, press <ENTER> to Save Changes and Exit.

As the machine continues the boot procedure the Kudzu program will activate and ask whether you wish to configure the drive(s). Select "Configure" on the Kudzu menu and the boot-up will continue.

3. Partition the New Hard Drive.

Log into the WES/DRT AWIPS system as the root user. What we will do is remove the four partitions initially configured on the drive, then create a new, single partition, /dev/sdb1, to be mounted at /data. We will use the fdisk utilitily to do that: 

>fdisk /dev/sdb <ENTER>	(Start the fdisk utility on the hard drive, device /dev/sdb)

>p <ENTER>		(Print the list of current partitions)
You will see four partitions listed, each with the same Start, End, Blocks and Id numbers and with an "Unknown" System. We will remove those partitions. 
 
>d <ENTER>		(Delete)

>4 <ENTER>		(Partition #4)

>d <ENTER>		(Delete)

>3 <ENTER>		(Partition #3)

>d <ENTER>		(Delete)

>2 <ENTER>		(Partition #2)

>d <ENTER>		(Delete)

>1 <ENTER>		(Partition #1)

>n <ENTER>		(Create a new partition)

>p <ENTER>		(A primary partition)

>1 <ENTER>		(That's a numeral one!)

>2 <ENTER>		(There's a school of thought that says never start with 1!)

> <ENTER>		(Accept the default ending point of 8924)

>p <ENTER>		(Print the new list of partitions.  You should see:

/dev/sdb1      2   8924   71681998+   83   Linux

>w			(Write to disk and exit fdisk)

Now we make a file system on the new hard drive. Continuing as the user "root": 

>mkfs /dev/sdb1 <ENTER>		(Ignore any warning message.)

Reboot the machine.

Next edit the /etc/fstab file and add the following line: 

/dev/sdb1   /data    ext2   defaults  1  2
The WES software looks for case data in the directory /data/awips. Because the WES software created a link /data to /usr1/data when you first installed the WES software, we must remove that link before we create the new mount point. At the command prompt type: 
> cd / <ENTER>				(Change to the root directory)
> ls -al <ENTER>			(Can you see /data linked to /usr1/data?)
> rm /data <ENTER>			(Remove the link)
> mkdir /data <ENTER>			(Make a mount point for the new disk)
> chown fxa:fxalpha /data <ENTER>	(Change ownership of that directory to user fxa, group fxalpha)
> chmod 775 /data <ENTER>		(Change the permissions of that directory)
Now you can mount the drive (and check that line in /etc/fstab!) by typing: 
> mount /dev/sdb1	(Mount the drive's only partition (dev/sdb1) at /data.)
> df			(Can you see /dev/sdb1 mounted at /data?)
Now let's make the subdirectories used by the WES for case data and log files: 
> su - fxa <ENTER>		(Switch to the "fxa" user)
> cd /data <ENTER>		(Change to the /data directory)
> mkdir awips <ENTER>		(Make the awips subdirectory)
> mkdir logs <ENTER>		(Make the logs subdirectory)
Link any existing cases to the new disk directories (e.g., 1998Apr08). As the user "fxa" at the command prompt type: 
> cd /data/awips <ENTER>	(Change to the /data/awips subdirectory)
> ls /usr1/data/awips <ENTER>	(List all the existing cases stored under /usr1/data/awips)

Create a link for each of those cases:

> ln -s /usr1/data/awips/1998Apr08 <ENTER>	(Add the link)

Continue for any other existing cases.
Reboot the machine. Log in as the user "fxa." Remember to load any new cases into the directory /data/awips on the device /dev/sdb1.

Thanks to Richard Black, ESA WFO Atlanta, for some of the material included on this page.

4. Disk Drive Warranty.

The disk drives we (NWS Southern Region) purchased are warranted by Seagate until April 2007. Refer to the Seagate Web site for more information.

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created by Bernard N. Meisner
Latest revision: 2 June 2004