CD-ROM on VAXstation 3200

From: Brian Chase <vaxzilla_at_jarai.org>
Date: Fri Nov 21 08:52:55 2003

On Fri, 21 Nov 2003, Bob Lafleur wrote:

> > to the second port I attached an external Plextor UltraPlex 32.
>
> Does that drive support 512-byte block mode? If so, do you need to change a
> DIP Switch? Many of the Plextor drives that support 512-byte blocks need a
> switch set. Some older Toshiba CD-ROM drives also support 512-byte block
> mode and will switch to it automatically when needed.
>
> Unless your controller does something special to circumvent it, you need a
> CD-ROM drive that supports 512-bytes per block mode. Hope this helps,

He also mentions using a older Sun CD-ROM drive with the same results.
Assuming no one has altered the settings on that drive, it should
already be set to 512-byte sectors.

Something that might be worth trying would be to see if the controller
is happier with something like a Zip drive attached to it. I think the
Zip drive would show up like a regular hard disk. With a little work,
if should be possible for someone to send you a disk with enough of a
NetBSD install to get the rest of the system installed.

Back in the 1.4.x days, I could /just/ fit a full install of NetBSD/vax
on a Zip 100 disk for booting my VAXstation 3100s. :-)

Since the lack of a tape based installation has gotten a lot of
discussion here in the past year or so, I'm going to try to tackling
that for the 2.0 release.

-brian.
Received on Fri Nov 21 2003 - 08:52:55 GMT