Need help on installing non-SGI system disks in a 4D50

[Martin Serrer]

Hello and help,

  I have an IRIS 4D50/GT, prom monitor version 4D1-3.0 with a 170 MegaByte SCSI
disk.
  Last week my only disk on the system broke. And as Murphy's Law dictates, I
cancelled the hardware part of my service contract a few months ago to 'save the
Canadian Gov't some money. ;-}
  Anyway, I had a Maxtor LXT200S 3.5" drive laying around and decided that I
might use that. HA!
  The situation now is that, stand-alone fx will format the drive without
complaint using the 'auto' option. (it will not let me turn on the automatic bad
block revectoring or the caching. but I'm not sure if that's a problem)
  However when I then try to install IRIX on this newly formatted disk I get the
following...

>> boot -f tpsc(,7,)sash.IP4 --m
Copying installation program to disk
...........................................................
...........................................................
...........................................................
.......Copy complete

661600dk(0,1,1)(4) Hardware error: Internal controller error.
dksc(0,0,1)unix.IP4: short read
couldn't load dksc(0,1,1)unix.IP4
Unable to continue; press Enter to return to menu:

Exception: <vector=NORMAL>
Exception pc: 0xc021

   (register dumps and other curiosities)

HELP! Can anyone shed some light on what I am doing wrong? (other than the
sacrilege of trying to install a 3rd party drive) I spoke to the hotline and a
local field engineer and they were sympathetic but bottom line was "You didn't
get it from us so we can't help you"
  Has anyone successfully installed a 3rd party drive in an IRIS as the system
disk?
  Does anyone have a list of drives that work?
  Why isn't the SCSI standard 'standard' :-{

  Any help will be greatly appreciated.
                Martin
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Martin Serrer                           Systems Lab., Bldg. M3, Montreal Rd.|
| 613-993-9442 (Bell)                     National Research Council of Canada,|
| serrer at syslab.nrc.ca   (E-mail)         Ottawa,  Ontario,  Canada  K1A-0R6  |
+--------------- If my computer is a car, I don't want a roof ----------------+