bcw@rti.UUCP (Bruce Wright) (02/01/90)
In article <32050@genrad.UUCP>, rxf@genrad.uucp ( Ruben D. Fagundo ) writes: > > I have a rainbow 100A with a hard drive. The CPU has some sort of > combination memory expansion and hard drive controller card. These are two > cards that are piggybacked together. There is a ribbon cable that goes > from here to another card just above the hard drive. And this appears to be > the real hard drive controller. Normally, the most (=almost all) hard disk drives on Rainbows, PC's, MicroVAXes, etc, etc, have two separate "controller" cards. One is the system interface card (commonly called the "controller" card), which in this case is the card with the memory expansion on the CPU. The other deals with low-level drive control, and is integrated with the drive itself (commonly called the "drive electronics"). This is apparently the card that is just above the hard drive on your machine (though I think that they are usually mounted below the drive). > Nonetheless, the problem is that when I insert a DOS 2.11 disk in > drive A or B and tell it to boot, I get the following > messages. > > Loading MS-DOS 2.11 ... > > Then I get the Microsoft messages, etc, and just before I get the prompt > the system reboots and gives a message that goes something like, > > ..... Message 16: Interrupts Off ... > > I called DEC and they said that this appears to be that the disk isn't > being read properly. Since then I have tried different formated system > disks with no success. I also pulled out the hard drive/memory card and > no change. Could my floppy controller card be bad? Unfortunately the Interrupts Off message is sort of the Rainbow's catch-all error message - whenever anything goes wrong, it seems to be the major error message you get. If you have removed the hard drive/memory card from the CPU (so that there is no possibility of problems with that hardware), and you have tried different Rainbow DOS system floppy disks (presumably you are aware that you can't use an MS-DOS system intended for IBM compatibles), then it is almost certain that the problem is with the floppy drive or the floppy controller - it's hard to tell, but the fact that it fails in either the A or B floppy seems to indicate that it's a controller problem. That isn't entirely certain because the Rainbow A and B floppies are connected together in a single unit, sharing a single drive motor (and other things, though of course they have separate heads), and it's possible that there's something wrong with the RX50 unit itself rather than the controller. > Does anyone have any ideas about this problem or this message? Does > anyone know anything about this hard drive/memory card configuration? > And finally does anyone know where I can get more info on this > hard drive/memory card configuration for a 100A? I'm not particularly familiar with a 100A - the only ones I've ever taken apart are 100B's and 100+'s. The 100A is somewhat different, and I've not heard of that particular configuration with the hard drive controller (though that doesn't necessarily mean anything). You might talk to Suitable Solutions - 408-727-9090 - they do deal with Rainbow hardware though usually not with repair (they would probably have a new floppy controller in stock however). DEC will probably fix it for you if you carry it into their service desk; their prices are a bit on the high side but not out of sight (at least around here, they charge a flat fee for the type of problem, rather than charging by the hour, so you can probably ask and find out in advance pretty nearly what it would cost you). The main problem with going with DEC is that if the problem is with the floppy unit itself, they want some outrageous amount of $$$ for a replacement dual floppy drive (over $700 the last I knew). Their prices on other replacement parts are usually not quite so bad. If you feel comfortable swapping parts yourself, you can pick up some replacement parts fairly cheap at any of a number of used equipment vendors (Newman, Digital Basics, Midwest, Brookline, and Kimberly, to name a few), and this might not be bad insurance for next time even if you don't wind up using all the parts. Good luck. Bruce C. Wright