I picked up a couple of 4Gb Seagate SCSI drives recently (used but
"supposedly" pulled from a working system-- I know to take this with a
grain of salt, but "what the hey"). They are recognized on "boot -r" (
device files are created) but are reported as being "unformated"

Running format I define the type as (based on a "loose" description I
found on another group posting)

Specify disk type (enter its number): 16
Enter number of data cylinders: 3880
Enter number of alternate cylinders[2]:
Enter number of physical cylinders[3882]:
Enter number of heads: 16
Enter physical number of heads[default]:
Enter number of data sectors/track: 135
Enter number of physical sectors/track[default]:
Enter rpm of drive[3600]: 5400

format> inquiry
Vendor: SEAGATE
Product: ST15230W SUN4.2G
Revision: 0764
format> analyze

format> format
Ready to format. Formatting cannot be interrupted.
Continue? yes
Beginning format. The current time is Thu May 19 11:16:10 2005

Formatting...
Format failed

Retry of formatting operation without any of the standard
mode selects and ignoring disk's Grown Defects list. The
disk may be able to be reformatted this way if an earlier
formatting operation was interrupted by a power failure or
SCSI bus reset. The Grown Defects list will be recreated
by format verification and surface analysis.

Retry format without mode selects and Grown Defects list? yes
Formatting...
Not ready error during format
ASC: 0x4 ASCQ: 0x0
failed
format>

Thought or suggestions? Hopeless?