5 Jul
2001
5 Jul
'01
8:49 a.m.
On Jul 5, 8:52, Doug Carman wrote:
I have a PDP-11/83 with an RQDX3 disk controller and a
pair of RD53
drives from a MicroVAX II. Since all I can get from both drives are I/O
errors, I am left to assume that they were once hooked to an RQDX2
controller and now need to be re-low-level formatted to work with the
RQDX3. Does anyone know what is required to do this on an 11/83? Was
there an XXDP diagnostic program that did this?
If the drives came from a MicroVAX-II it's unlikely they were on an RQDX2.
As far as I know, those machines all had RQDX3s. Anyone know differently?
RD53's aren't the most reliable of drives, and it may be they really are
failing.
The TechTips said that there were a lot of problems with errors, especially
on RQDX1 and RQDX2 controllers, due to over-long unscreened cables, or
early revisions of the M9058 board. You might take a look at the cables
and check the voltages at the drives too. Check the version numbers of the
ROMs on the RQDX3 as well, early versions had some problems, and IIRC you
are supposed to change W23 according to the drive type and RQDX3 revision
level. The one in my 11/83 has 23-243E5/23-244E5 ROMs (that's revision 2,
there is a later revision in 23-285E5/23-286E5 and the final version was
23-339E5/23-240E5) and W23 is made 1-2 and 3-4.
You're right about XXDP. Specifically, XXDP Ver.2 (though XXDP+ should
work too) and the program you want for formatting using an RQDX3 is
ZRQC??.BIN (the latest version I have is ZRQCH0.BIN). ZRQB??.BIN is the
formatter for an RQDX1/2 (ZRQBC0.BIN formats up to an RD53).
There's XXDP documentation in both PostScript and PDF formats on my website
at http://www.dunnington.u-net.com/public/ Take a look in the
/public/DECROMs directory too.
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Network Manager
University of York