21 Jan
2013
21 Jan
'13
1:56 p.m.
On Mon, Jan 21, 2013 at 1:34 PM, Cameron Kaiser <spectre at floodgap.com> wrote:
And sits there again. What am I doing wrong?
(Don't say use another CD-ROM
drive; this one works perfectly with every other computer I've used it with.
And if it *is* the drive, why would it boot from it but not install from it?)
To boot on your VAX (and old Suns and old Macs...) it has to return
the info from the disc in 512-byte blocks. To treat like an ISO-9660
read-only storage device, it has to return the info from the disc in
2048-byte blocks.
Some CD-ROM drives power up in 512-byte mode so you can boot from
them. Others need a mode switch command packet - those work with
newer Suns because past a certain point, the OpenBoot firmware knows
to send that.
If your drive is one that has to be jumpered to 512-byte-per-block
mode, perhaps it's not able or doesn't know it should switch to
2048-byte-per-block mode to be used as a "standard" CD-ROM drive.
I would look at what model of drive you have and compare its features
to whatever model was shipped with DEC gear and see how they differ.
-ethan