flynn@anyguay.acm.rpi.edu (Kevin Lincoln Flynn) (07/13/89)
Just not-so-idle curiosity, since I think I've got one dead 3B2/300 with a good
hard disk (dead system board) and two with dead VTOCs on their hard disks...
Question 1: Is it really that complicated to add the disk drive from the
dead 3B2 to a live one as the second hard disk? (c1d1s6) ?
Or does one just connect those neat little sockets on the back
of a /300 to the card edge connectors of the good drive, move
that little drive-select jumper into slot two and fire the
system up?
Question 2: What can one do about a disk with a dead VTOC? We tried the
fmthard command and such (sysadm partitioning, full restore)
and ALL the formatting commands seem to depend on a good VTOC!
This doesn't make much sense to me! Is the controller on the
/300 we were using bad? or is it really the case that all the
formatters distributed with the /300s are highlevel that depend
on the VTOC being intact? and if THAT is true....
Question 3: What kind of disk controller does a 3B2/300 use? ST506 like
we think? And if we can find, say, a DOS machine with the
same kind of controller, can we do a low-level format there,
repartition on the 3B2 and expect it to work? Or am I just
grasping at straws? [ :) ]
Any help will be EXTREMELY appreciated. Thanks a lot, in advance.
- Flynn
PS. Replies via Email will be preferred; I believe email to my reply-to
address (flynn@anyguay.acm.rpi.edu {flynn@128.113.10.205}) now works;
the problems you may have had earlier should now be fixed.
Kevin Lincoln Flynn flynn@anyguay.acm.rpi.edu, userfwvl@mts.rpi.edu
2151 12th Street H (518) 273-6914 W (518) 447-8561
Troy, NY 12180
...Argue for your limitations, and sure enough they're yours.