SCSI support?

[Bernd Blaauw]

Is installing ReactOS on a SCSI controller/harddisk already possible?
VMware has opensource win2000/xp drivers for the Buslogic controller 
they emulate
http://www.vmware.com/download/open_sources.html
http://www.vmware.com/download/downloadscsi.html

so it might be interesting to add it to ReactOS, in order to test the 
'install to SCSI' procedure.

regards,

Bernd Blaauw

[Hartmut Birr]

Hi,

currently it is not possible to add a scsi driver while installing ros. It
is possible to install ros on a scsi disk with a modified install cd. Ros
can use the NT 4.0 drivers from a scsi controller. You must do the following
steps:

a) Setupldr must load the scsi driver. The function RunLoader in
freeldr\reactos\setupldr.c does this. Add an entry for the scsi driver like
the entry for atapi.sys. The driver for the disk from which the bios does
boot must be the first disk driver.

b) The boot image must contain the driver. Copy the driver to the reactos
directory where atapi.sys is located.

c) The ros installer must know that it should copy the driver. Add an entry
to the SourceFile section in bootdata\txtsetup.sif like the entry for
atapi.sys.

d) The driver must be add to the registry which means add to hivesys.inf.
Hivesys.inf contains already entries for some scsi drivers. Currently only
the atapi driver will be loaded, because the Start value for all other
drivers is set to 4. The load sequence for the drivers depends on the tag
value of the driver and the GroupOrderList key. The first line from this key
is the number (dword) of tag entries in the list. The following lines are
the tag list. The drivers are loaded by the sequence of this list. The
numeric value of a tag is only a marker, not a load priority.

The driver entries in hifesys.inf comes from me. I've tested all this
controllers. It is possible to boot ros from a scsi disk which is attached
to one of this controllers.

- Hartmut
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [e-mail] 
> [mailto:[e-mail]] On Behalf Of Bernd Blaauw
> Sent: Thursday, October 21, 2004 4:50 AM
> To: ReactOS Development List
> Subject: [ros-dev] SCSI support?
>
> Is installing ReactOS on a SCSI controller/harddisk already possible?
> VMware has opensource win2000/xp drivers for the Buslogic controller 
> they emulate
> http://www.vmware.com/download/open_sources.html
> http://www.vmware.com/download/downloadscsi.html
>
> so it might be interesting to add it to ReactOS, in order to test the 
> 'install to SCSI' procedure.
>
> regards,
>
> Bernd Blaauw
> _______________________________________________
> Ros-dev mailing list
> [e-mail]
> http://reactos.com:8080/mailman/listinfo/ros-dev

[Bernd Blaauw]

Hartmut Birr schreef:
> Hi,
>
> currently it is not possible to add a scsi driver while installing ros. It
> is possible to install ros on a scsi disk with a modified install cd. Ros
> can use the NT 4.0 drivers from a scsi controller. You must do the following
> steps:

Hello,

I guess you mean the "Press F6 for SCSI/RAID driver disks" message 
Windows gives?
What I was asking is: is the infrastructure there for installing on 
SCSI? From your message I can conclude:
YES, IF the driver is integrated into the ReactOS disk.

The VMware driver I pointed to is opensource (GPL), so you could add it 
to ReactOS as a basic driver,
so you can demonstrate that ReactOS can install on SCSI harddisk. And it 
makes testing and/or using ReactOS in VMware a lot easier.
The trick question: is it harmful if this driver gets loaded but there's 
no hardware for it present?
Does the driver auto-fail without causing any BSOD/hangups, and will 
ReactOS continue?

thanks for the reply, though I think out-of-the-box support for several 
emulators and their hardware is important to demonstrate ReactOS to a 
larger public
("hey, this operating system you're showing to me has networking and 
1024x768-32bit advanced video driver support! wow, I'm impressed!")

I didn't know drivers were at NT4 level, thought ReactOS required 
2000/XP drivers.
good luck with the project.

Bernd