31 Dec
2012
31 Dec
'12
5:43 p.m.
I made the same experience when I performed a "DEC-format-marathon" with ten
ST-225 drives which were neither DEC-labeled nor where DEC-formatted before.
Most of my disk drives where successfully formatted after having entered the
drive parameters for the "TEST 70" procedure, but in case of some drives,
the procedure was aborted. These drives where not successfully recognised
as RD31 and no format was performed by my microVAX-2000 in these cases.
What I found out is that the drives which were not recognised as RD31's were
drives with some bad blocks detected when formatted with a PC.
Can anybody else comment on or has made that experience?
I successfully formatted several oddball non-DEC-branded drives rescued from
a skip (dumpster) using a VS2000. It was a long time ago and I don't remember
the details but I suspect some at least had a list of bad blocks on the label.
I seem to recall that I did not have any way of knowing what the correct
parameters were and I found some by extrapolating from the example in the manual
and by trial and error. I agree with the general view that they should be
jumpered as DS3 for the internal drive.
I eventually made a new drive cable so that I could have a "hot swappable"
disk outside the case. This worked great until I came upon one particular drive
which, when I pushed the connectors onto it, the VS2000 PSU promptly switched
itself off. I was somewhat puzzled as I was using an external PSU for the disk
and could not have been overloading the VS2000 PSU or so I thought. I pulled
off the connectors, power cycled the machine and tried connecting the drive
again and the same thing happened. Not to be defeated, I tried connecting all
the cables up and then powering up the VS2000. This time the PSU tried harder,
the machine powered up and one of the wires in the data cable turned itself into
a heating element, melted and nearly set fire to its insulation. It seems that
one of the wires in the data lead to the external drive has a not very well
protected +5V on it and at least one drive variant shorts this to ground...
Regards,
Peter Coghlan.