[Info-vax] DEC 3000/900 bootup problem

[H Vlems]

On 1 jan, 07:36, Vance Haemmerle <va... at toyvax.Glendale.CA.US> wrote:
>    Today my DEC 3000/900 developed a problem.
> It was in a cluster with a VAXstation and was
> booted out of the cluster, both had been up for
> 42 days, it appeared to have hung.  Now the DEC 3000/900
> cannot boot.  Here are the symptoms...
>
> Whether booting from the system disk, an internal
> RRD45 or a newly connected RRD43 (just in case it was
> a disk or cd-rom problem) after all the inits and
> book checks pass and the
>
> OpenVMS (TM) Alpha Operating System, Version 7.1-2
>
> message appears and a few more disk activities occur
> (drive or CD-ROM) the bootup appears to hang.
>
> Details and things I've tried:
>
> All power-on tests are OK
> All console tests pass
> The number on the console display is normal ("90").
> A boot from the V7.1-2 and V7.2-2 CD-ROMs hang
> soon after the OS version string.
> Conversational boots with "MIN", USE DEFAULT and SET/STARTUP OPA0:
> all hang.
> The system also has a drive with Tru64 Unix V4.0F on it
> but it boots all the way up and runs!
>
> Any ideas of what to try or what it might be and why it only
> affects VMS bootup?  I assume something in the autoconfigure
> is going bad.
>
> --
> Vance Haemmerle

Well, you proved that the hardware is not at fault, with the exception
of the VMS system disk. That may still be the cause.
You wouldn't have a mount command in one of the startup command
procedures that come with VMS, other than in SYSTARTUP_VMS itself or
procedures called by it?
Or modified a command procedure that is used directly by STARTUP.COM
and makes the system wait for, say, a process that is not yet there or
a device that is not ready?

Hans