[comp.sys.dec.micro] PRO350 40mb disk

tmiller@BINAH.CC.BRANDEIS.EDU (09/27/90)

Hello,
   I'm having a problem with installing a ST251-1 (40mb) disk drive on
my PRO running POS 3.2 .  I wonder if anyone else has ever done this.
While it works fine as a second drive if formated from the toolkit if
I try and install POS on it it returns a FBI (format/bad block/initialization)
error during the install.  I theorize that there is an error block which
is bad in the boot sector and that the PRO can't re-vector the boot sector
but there is a specific error for that condition and further investigation
of the error dump status tells me that there was an 'unrecoverable error'
rather than a 'bad block in boot sector'.   
	Any ideas?

                                            Todd M. Miller
                                            Chemistry Dept.
                                            Brandeis University
                                            tmiller@binah.cc.brandeis.edu
                                            tmiller@brandeis.bitnet

chaim@eniac.seas.upenn.edu (Chaim Dworkin) (09/29/90)

In article <0093D4F7.E4C82900@BINAH.CC.BRANDEIS.EDU> tmiller@BINAH.CC.BRANDEIS.EDU writes:
>Hello,
>   I'm having a problem with installing a ST251-1 (40mb) disk drive on
>my PRO running POS 3.2 .  I wonder if anyone else has ever done this.
>While it works fine as a second drive if formated from the toolkit if
>I try and install POS on it it returns a FBI (format/bad block/initialization)
>error during the install.  I theorize that there is an error block which
>is bad in the boot sector and that the PRO can't re-vector the boot sector
>but there is a specific error for that condition and further investigation
>of the error dump status tells me that there was an 'unrecoverable error'
>rather than a 'bad block in boot sector'.   
>	Any ideas?
>

Are you using the proper controller card for that drive?  When I upgraded 
from a 5 Mb drive to a 20 Mb drive on my Pro I had to get a new controller
card because I was told that all the controller cards were limited as to
what size hard drives they could handle.  Another question that comes to
mind is if you have lots of time you could install the drive into an MSDOS
computer temporarily.  There are tons of MSDOS HD diagnostic programs around
which could tell the status of the boot sector on your ST251.




--
Chaim Dworkin                             (chaim@eniac.seas.upenn.edu)

steve@grian.cps.altadena.ca.us (Steve Mitchell) (09/29/90)

For those of us getting into the Pro350 game late, could those who
have the information post a list of the option boards available for
the Pro350 and what they are for?  This is the first I've heard that
there were multiple hard disk controller boards for this system.

Thanks!
-- 
		-  Steve Mitchell	steve@cps.altadena.ca.us
					grian!steve@elroy.jpl.nasa.gov
					ames!elroy!grian!steve
"God is licht, an in him there is nae mirkness ava." -- 1 John 1:5