tinle@aimt.UU.NET (Tin Le) (01/25/90)
I need help on formatting a system disk (HD) for a 32/600.
What happened was that our system disk croaked and was replaced
(with a brand new 140MB hard disk). I exchanged the
2 drives without trouble (little did I know), and went to
re-install with the 1.02.00 INSTALL tape. I booted up and got
the "SELECT STARTUP FUNCTION" menu, chose 2 (INSTALL SYSTEM)
and told it to use st01 for device. It loaded the program fine
and recognized that the disk needed to be formatted. I told
it to go ahead.
It said: Determining Disk Type. The hard disk light flashes a
few times and then gave me these mesgs:
format: can't determine number of tracks per cylinder
*** Error ***
Cannot Format Root Disk - Check Hardware Installation
I have not worked with a Tower much and am not too familiar with
this procedure(on Towers). I've looked through TFM I have at
hand and still couldn't find what I needed to do. So if
you know what the problem is, please let me know, or even
better, tell me which and where in TFM to read.
Thanks much.
Oh yeah, we don't have maintenance (yeah, that is next on my
list of things to add :^)).
-- Tin Le
--
Tin Le | UUCP: {wyse, claris, uunet}!aimt!tinle
Sr. Software Engineer | Internet: tinle@aimt.uu.net
AIM Technology | XBBS (408)-739-1520 19.2K Telebit+
Santa Clara, CA 95054 |roe@sobmips.UUCP (r.peterson) (02/03/90)
From article <1926@sauron.Columbia.NCR.COM>, by wescott@Columbia.NCR.COM (Mike Wescott): > In article <3199@aimt.UU.NET> tinle@aimt.UU.NET (Tin Le) writes: >> I need help on formatting a system disk (HD) for a 32/600. > [...] >> format: can't determine number of tracks per cylinder > > A tough one. The software on the install tape needs to know > about that particular type of hard disk, but since that part > of the formatter never becomes disk resident (it's trying to > format what might be the only disk on the system) you can't > patch anything. > > Get somebody else to format it for you, or upgrade to a newer > release that supports that particular disk. Or use a supportted > disk as the root and install to that, use the new disk as a second > disk. > (All of the following is correct for versions of NCR unix up to 1.03.02 - I haven't looked at this for newer releases.) Even using the new disk as a second one may not help if the format program can't figure out the disk. I'm not really sure why NCR decided to do this, but: /etc/format gets its' disk type information from /usr/lib/diin, which is a file encrypted by the absolute simplest method known to programmers. If you wish to add an unknown disk to this file, you will need to decrypt the file (which produces something amazingly like a termcap file, but for hard disks), modify it, and recrypt it. This program will both decrypt and encrypt: #include <stdio.h> main() { register int c; while((c=getchar()) != EOF) putchar(c ^ 0xff); } compile it, call it something (bdcrypt, for example), then run: bdcrypt < /usr/lib/diin > /usr/lib/diin.asc edit diin.asc, and to recrypt it back into place: bdcrypt < /usr/lib/diin.asc > /usr/lib/diin Hope this helps. file (to -- One makes strong assumptions delving Roe Peterson into the beginning of the universe... {uunet,mcgill-vision}!sobeco!roe - Stephen Hawking, Cambridge