[HECnet] Bringing up a MicroVAX 3100-80

[Supratim Sanyal]

Remote troubleshooting and system recovery at its absolute best, executed by a master.

Also many lessons learned about things I have heard about but never really got into in a pure simulated environment.

Thanks Steve.


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Supratim Sanyal, W1XMT
39.19151 N, 77.23432 W
QCOCAL::SANYAL via HECnet


> On Mar 31, 2020, at 3:46 PM, Steve Davidson <steve at davidson.net> wrote:
> 
> I am happy to report that Supratim and I have managed to connect me to his system, create a VAXcluster boot node on SimH, boot the system into the cluster as a satellite and now running ANALYZE/DISK/REPAIR/READ against the troubled disk.
> 
> -Steve
> 
>> On Tue, 2020-03-31 at 10:00 -0400, Steve Davidson wrote:
>> Supratim,
>> 
>> If you can contact me offline I can probably walk you through any number of scenarios to deal with this. 
>> 
>> -Steve Davidson
>> 
>> SF:iP1
>> 
>>> On Mar 31, 2020, at 01:00, Supratim Sanyal <supratim at riseup.net> wrote:
>>> 
>>>  On 3/31/20 12:25 AM, John H. Reinhardt wrote:
>>>>> On 3/30/2020 10:59 PM, Ray Jewhurst wrote: 
>>>>> I haven't tried burning but I used p7z         through File Roller on a Linux Mint system. I have only used it as an image on Simh. I am not at my computer tonight but if you need it tomorrow I can get you a checksum on the unzipped image. 
>>>>> 
>>>>> Ray 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> Okay. Maybe it's a difference between Linux and macOOS.  I downloaded the file from WInWorldPC.  The actual file came from someone named "Ricky" in Germany.  The file downloaded was "DEC VMS 5.5-2H4 (Jul 1993) [VAX] (ISO).7z"  I ran it through "TheUnarchiver" and it produced a folder with two files.  A txt file and "VMS 552h4 VAX.iso". I tried burning that ISO file but then I get the disk image is invalid error. 
>>>> 
>>>> I'll have to get a copy of SimH running on my Mac and see it it can read the ISO. 
>>>> 
>>> 
>>> Vaxhaven's AG-PXL1A-RE.iso is 236013792 bytes, Winworld's "VMS 552h4 VAX.iso" is 205508764. Neither can be burnt by MacOS directly from the GUI. The following command line results in a "raw" burn (remove the -testburn switch to enable the laser).
>>> 
>>> $ hdiutil burn -testburn -imagekey diskimage-class=CRawDiskImage -speed 2 Downloads/DEC\ VMS\ 5.5-2H4\ \(Jul\ 1993\)\ \[VAX\]\ \(ISO\)/VMS\ 552h4\ VAX.iso
>>> 
>>> The Vaxhaven raw burn does not boot. I will try the Winworld version next. BUT, just to make sure the RRD42 is not the problem, here's a couple of questions about it:
>>> 
>>> 1) I have connected the SCSI cable at the bottom and a terminator at the top. Is this okay?
>>> 
>>> 2) When I insert the caddie in (with the CD in the caddy), the green light turns on for a few seconds and then turns off. Nothing else happens. MicroVAX comes back to ">>>" prompt after a few minutes, no other messages. Should I expect to hear some noises of the plate at the bottom of the caddie moving sideways to expose the CD to the laser, etc?
>>> 
>>> Also, even if I get to a point where I boot into standalone backup, how am I to fix the problem with DKA100's contiguity issue?
>>> 
>>> The previous owner said he had actual PAKs that he could not find, but are loaded in the LMF databse. I would very much like to at least be able to copy the LMF and am averse to reinstalling a fresh copy of VMS on DKA100 (everyobdy here will understand exactly why this is super-important now).
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> On Mon, Mar 30, 2020, 11:53 PM John H. Reinhardt <johnhreinhardt at thereinhardts.org <mailto:johnhreinhardt at thereinhardts.org>> wrote: 
>>>>> 
>>>>>     On 3/30/2020 10:46 PM, Ray Jewhurst wrote: 
>>>>>     > I have tried both the VAXHaven and WinWorldPC copies of 5.5-2H4 and I tend to agree that the VAXHaven one is corrupted (at least it's never worked for me). But the WinWorldPC copy works great. Also, corrupt is the MicroVMS 4.7 TK50 image on VAXHaven. 
>>>>>     > 
>>>>>     > Ray 
>>>>> 
>>>>>     The file I got from WinWorldPC came as a ".7z" archive.  and I unpacked it with "TheUnarchiver".  Does that match what you did? The file I get from that always gets the "Could not burn "VMS 552h4 VAX.iso". The disk image is invalid." error from the Mac disk burn software. 
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>>     Did you do something differently? 
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>>     Thanks. 
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>>     John H. Reinhardt 
>>>>> 
>>>> 
>>> -- 
>>> Supratim Sanyal, W1XMT
>>> 39.19151 N, 77.23432 W
>>> QCOCAL::SANYAL via HECnet
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