David,
The joys of SCSI CDROMs and VAXes ;) Are you sure you really want to
know
:-o
I had the same thing with a VAXstation 4000/90 recently. The problem is
that in order to boot off a CDROM the VAX requires that the drive be set
in 512 bytes/sector mode. This will be configured by a jumper on the
drive itself. You may well find that the drive does not support this
mode, as most PC-compatible drives use 2K bytes/sector. Also, not all
SCSI cdrom drives are made equal - I have a Pioneer drive which supports
512 bytes/sector but still doesn't boot correctly.
In the case where it doesn't work I would suggest rather than messing
around trying drives you get yourself a Plextor UltraPlex 40x drive
(they can be picked up off ebay, I would say that a 32x drive would also
work but don't quote me on this) - this is the only type of drive that
has worked for me.
Persevere though - it is worth it - I recently got to the stage where
I'm into DECwindows and it is scary seeing it after nearly 12 years
since I saw it last.
Mark.
Mark Wickens
Rhodium Consulting Ltd
-----Original Message-----
From: cctalk-bounces_at_classiccmp.org
[mailto:cctalk-bounces_at_classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Antonio Carlini
Sent: 14 July 2004 23:29
To: 'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts'
Subject: RE: Booting a VAXstation 4000 VLC off the hobbyist boot CD-ROM
> I have my VAXstation 4000 VLC running to the ">>>" prompt and would
> like to boot the hobbyist CD-ROM to install VMS on the hard drive but
> I'm having trouble getting the CD-ROM to boot. If I type
> 'boot dka400'
> at the prompt, the CD-ROM spins up and I get the text "-DKA400"
> displayed on the console but then I get the ">>>" prompt again. Can
> anyone tell me why that would happen? I'm using a NEC CDR-1910A SCSI
> CD-ROM drive set to SCSI ID 4.
I'm assuming that you are using a VAX VMS CD and not an
Alpha one :-) (And that it's the OS one and not one of
the layered products ones ...)
Some of the later CDs (V6.1 onwards or so) allow
you to boot to OpenVMS rather than SA BACKUP:
So something like:
B/R5:10000000 DKA400:
may work. If you have another working VMS box
you can verify that the CD you have does indeed
have a [SYS1] root.
"B DKA400:" should have booted SA BACKUP, so
if it didn't are you sure that:
- you used the right CD (what part number and OS version is it)?
- that your CD actually is DKA400: (SHOW DEVICE should help here)
- that your CD supports 512-byte blocks and is configured to do so
(what CD is it)?
Antonio
--
---------------
Antonio Carlini arcarlini_at_iee.org
Received on Thu Jul 15 2004 - 04:06:05 BST