[Info-vax] DEC 3000/900 bootup problem

[Vance Haemmerle]

H Vlems wrote:
> 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

   I do have mount commands in the SYLOGICALS.COM
command file, but that's run after the system would join
the cluster, and no attempt is made before the hang.
In any case, if there were a problem with one of the
startup command files, booting conversationally and
doing a SET/STARTUP OPA0: should get around that and
this hangs also.

   Also, booting off the OS installation CD-ROM should
not have a problem with the startup command files
which would be on the CD-ROM itself.

--
Vance Haemmerle