pag@hao.UUCP (Peter Gross) (04/24/84)
We have had a repeated problem with one of our RA81's. Whenever we
have a power outage, the formatting information at the beginning of
one file system somehow gets trashed. Our DEC CE claims that unlike
older SMD disks, the formatter works only on the entire pack.
So each time this happens, the whole disk has to be reformatted and
we have to restore from backup. It's getting to be a real drag.
It is always the same file system on the same drive.
Couple of questions:
1. Since this always happens only on one of four RA81's, should we
expect that there is some kind of hardware problem in the drive
logic and ask that it be replaced?
2. Is it true that the RA81 diagnostics can only format the entire disk,
not selected portions?
Please reply by mail....
--peter gross
hao!pag ----> UUCP
hao!pag@SEISMO ----> ARPAboylan@dicomed.UUCP (Chris Boylan) (04/26/84)
...
Your ra81 is obviously broken.
Has anyone dealt with the problem with the ra81 failing to reboot
after a longish powerfail because the boot rom doesn't loop (or
doesn't loop long enough) waiting for the drive to come ready and
gives up before the drive spins up. Local DEC people were less than
convinced that this was a DEC problem and didn't really know what
to do about it. I don't know what magic phrase is needed to get
DEC to generate an ECO on this either....
Chris Boylan
DICOMED Corp.
{we13 | uwvax | ihnp4!umn-cs}!dicomed!boylanpag@hao.UUCP (Peter Gross) (04/30/84)
Thanks to all respondents to my query about whether a power fail should affect an RA81 disk. The overwhelming consensus was that power fails haven't messed up other sites' RA81's. DEC checked out the drive logic and found one module out of REV. --peter gross hao!pag