In an Adaptec SCSI Card 29320LPE's Adaptec SCSISelect Utility, neither "Format Disk" nor "Verify Disk Media" would work for two Fujitsu Ultra-320 SCSI 146GB (MAW3147NC) hard drives, immediately returning "Unexpected SCSI Command Failure" and "00h - No SCSI controller error". Both functions worked normally on two Seagate Ultra-320 SCSI 73.4GB (ST373405LC) drives.
When a Verify or Low Level Format is attempted on the hard drive, it responds with some error codes did not sound very promising:
If the error occurs in both Format and Verify, it usually indicates a defective drive. Contact the drive vendor for interpretation of other errors.
Happily, Unexpected SCSI command failure message when attempting low level format held the answer:
One reason for this could be the way the SCSI controller is set up to hand-shake with the device. This can be changed through the SCSISelect utility. Enter the SCSI Select utility by pressing CTRL-A on system boot or insert the SCSI Select diskette.
In the SCSI Select utility, take the option for Configure/View Host Adapter Settings. Then choose SCSI Device Configuration.
On the next screen you will see the SCSI ID's listed across the top and the options to set for each ID listed down the left side. For the SCSI ID of the hard drive that you are trying to verify or format, set Initiate Sync Negotiation to NO ( on U160/U320 controllers change Initiate Wide Negotiation = No), Enable Disconnection to NO, and Maximum Sync Transfer Rate to 5mb/sec. Exit the utility, saving the changes.
While "Verify Disk Media" failed if run first, running "Format Disk" then "Verify Disk Media" worked. Increasing the "Maximum Sync Transfer Rate" to 40MB/sec had no ill-effect and made verifying the format via hexdump much faster.
/misc | Sep 13, 2018