VAXStation disk question

From: John Lawson <jpl15_at_panix.com>
Date: Tue Mar 9 22:26:23 2004

O Gurus assembled - hear my story:


 Was at Mike Quinn's in the Area of the Bay on Saturday after a nice visit
to Sellam's ..... um.... place of business. ;}

  Found a forlorn VAXStation 3100 M38 upside down in a stack of PCs, and
bought same for about twice the going rate. Of course, that amount of
money would still not get one a decent burrito, so I didn't pay much.

  Getting it home and hooked up, it goes thru the usual VAXStation boot
sequence ending in the >>> chevron prompt.

  Attempting to boot, >>> b (ret)

 produces a 1 minute wait and returns

40 NOSUCHDEV
06 HLT INST
   PC=00000C66

the first time after power-up and

40 NOSUCHDEV
84 FAIL

subsequently to [back-panel button] resetting and re-attempting a boot.

  This was a DEC-owned machine, it has a DEC property/asset tag on it, and
the drive is a DEC RZ23-E (Connor). If it's running, it's the damn
quietest HD I've ever encountered. The drive is getting it's proper
voltages, +5 and +12, and upon power up the faintest of 'clicks' can be
heard within it (parking solenoid??) and then nothing.

  I have tried the judicious use of repetitive impulse torque normal to
the plane of rotation of the platters (I held it and banged a corner with
the handle of a screwdriver) in case the spindle was perhaps stuck.

  SO: I'd love to know what's on this HD, but it's possible to also form
the assumption that it has gone to be with it's Honorable Ancestors and
will not return this way again.


  Any thoughts / ideas?

Thanking Y'all in advance:

Cheers

John
Received on Tue Mar 09 2004 - 22:26:23 GMT

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