[Info-vax] MicroVAX 3100-30 - won't boot...

[Simon Clubley]

On 2010-01-01, Kari Uusimäki <uusimaki at exdecWITHOUTTHISfinland.org> wrote:
>
> Btw. many of the DEC RRD* drives are made by Toshiba. But if the CD 
> drive wouldn't work correctly the boot wouldn't go as far as it appears 
> to have now. I also do suspect the CD medium rather than the drive. If 
> Hans sends you a tested CD try using that first.
>

I have not seen anyone point out yet that VAX/VMS uses the VMB drivers
for the first part of the boot and only switches to the VMS drivers
after VMS has started booting.

It's been my personal experience in the (distant) past that the VMB
drivers are much more tolerant of hardware compatibility issues than
the VMS drivers are.

In other words, if there's a compatibility issue, it's entirely possible
that VMS will appear to hang after the first part of the boot. However,
my own experience with incompatible drives (IIRC) was that the drive would
go offline as far as VMS was concerned and VMS would report this
offline status.

Simon.

-- 
Simon Clubley, clubley at remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
Microsoft: Bringing you 1980's technology to a 21st century world