george@cornell.UUCP (George R. Boyce) (12/05/85)
Two questions about the tk50 on a microvaxII/Ultrix system... 1. Is it possible to build a boot tape? How is it done and are all the required parts on either a rx50 or a tk50 nonsource distribution? We were told no by the local DEC office... If the answer is no, could someone explain why? I assume it is in order to protect DEC's software distribution. 2. We were told that all tk50 tapes with serial numbers in the range xxx15-xxxx to xxx30-xxxx are bad and should be replaced and/or fixed and those that have been fixed have the letter "B" stamped on them. The local office also said that they would replace those tapes *with* the B if we reported any problems with them. Well, we have had a ton of problems with the first box of ten we received all of which had the B stamp. OTHER than this problem, how well does the tk50 work? It seems like I have had problems not related to the tapes. I've had 'mt status' hang and refuse to die. I've had the drive go offline and then refuse to come back online (is there a command like 'mt online'?). There doesn't seem to be any 'online' light except that we had the local office replace one of our two drives and the green light on the new one DOES seem to indicate online. The green light is off on the other drive when the tape is online making it real hard to tell what is going on, say just after loading the tape. Any comments? Maybe the folks at decuac will see this and answer? Thanks in advance!