30 Jan
2014
30 Jan
'14
7:42 p.m.
On Thu, Jan 30, 2014 at 1:47 PM, Jonathan Katz <jon at jonworld.com> wrote:
On Thu, Jan 30, 2014 at 12:39 PM, Ethan Dicks
<ethan.dicks at gmail.com> wrote:
Which VAX and how large is your disk?
I think it's more a case of, if you _try_ to use a larger disk on
these machines (MicroVAX 3100?), it works to a point, but the boot
ROMs can't access partitions past the first 1.05GB (20 address bits in
the older command packets, IIRC) and a crashdump will overwrite part
of your filesystem when the block addresses get truncated by stuffing
block numbers past 1GB into packets that can only address 1GB.
With the SCSI2SD, just stick a 1GB SD card in there and *poof*
compatible boot disk, I think (presuming it auto-sizes).
I'm interested in this product but at ~$100 including postage from Oz,
it's a bit more than I'm comfortable paying since I still have a stack
of 1GB and 2GB and 4GB real SCSi disks. Eventually I'll need
something like this, but by then, perhaps there will be a solution for
$50. It is a good idea and it looks well constructed, but the foreign
origin boosts the price over my comfort level.
-ethan
I would anticipate it should work fine in all of
those - of course it
wouldn't change the 1GB boot volume issue with certain models of VAX,
since that's the VAX firmware crafting the SCSI packets.
That may be why I can't get my Vax to boot from local disk!