29 Aug
2006
29 Aug
'06
2:06 p.m.
J Blaser wrote:
After adjusting the Drive Select (set to drive 2, per
IBM's twisted
cable 'standard') and Write Fault (if extant) jumpers, *none* of the
DEC-related drives are recognized by my test rig. I always get a "C:
drive error / Press <F1> to RESUME" message. The drive's ready light
is on, and all looks and sounds normal.
Is there something I've missed, trying to image
these 'DEC' drives?
Did I miss some not-so-obvious jumper somewhere (though I diligently
examined all documentation I could find)? Surely, they're just
good-ol' MFM drives, right?
They are, indeed, good old MFM drives but the RQDX3 controller
(and also IIRC, the earlier RQDX1/2 controllers) stored drive
parameters in a specific place on the drive. I suspect that,
without some insanely complex trickery, you will not be able
to read those drives easily using your PC setup. If you can
find out exactly what drive parameters the RQDX3 (or RQDX1/2)
used to use, you might be able to read the data.
If you can find a VAX system to plug these drives into, then you
could certainly boot into a cluster (which obviously means you need
another VAX and a network connection) and then perform an image
backup of the RD53/RD54 or whatever. If the disk contains an OS
other than VAX/VMS then a physical backup (BACKUP/PHYSICAL) should
preserve the contents.
Overall, I think it would be far less effort to find a MicroVAX
onto which these drives could be attached for imaging (then again,
I've not found it hard to locate the smaller VAXes).
BTW: The RQDX3 and RQDX1/2 ways of doing things are incompatible.
So you need to know which to use (or have both available and
try both). The odds are that it will be RQDX3 format, but it's
best to be aware of the possibility that it might not.
Antonio