8 Apr
2007
8 Apr
'07
10:25 p.m.
I've made some progress on getting my PDP-11/73 system up and
running. I have successfully created an RX50 XXDP boot floppy and
have booted XXDP. My next step was to try to format the RD54 hard
drive. I did this by running the ZRQCH0 (where does this name come
from anyway!) utility on the XXDP disk. I took all of
the defaults
and got the following failure. Does this indicate that my RQDX3
controller is bad or is this likely to indicate a bad hard drive?
.R ZRQCH0
ZRQCH0.BIN
DRSSM-G2
ZRQC-H-0
RQDX3 Disk Formatter Utility
UNIT IS Formattable Winchester (RDnn) or Floppy (RX33) Drives
RSTRT ADR 145702
DR>START
CHANGE HW (L) ? Y
# UNITS (D) ? 1
UNIT 0
Enter controller IP Address (O) 172150 ?
What unit do you want to format [0-255] (D) 0 ?
Would you like to revector a single LBN only [Y/N] (L) N ?
Do you want to use the "AUTOFORMAT" Mode [Y/N] (L) Y ?
Enter unit serial number [1-32000] (D) 12345 ?
**** WARNING ****
ALL DATA ON SELECTED DRIVE WILL BE DESTROYED
Write protect all drives not being formatted.
Please verify that the selected drive is ON LINE
and NOT write protected.
If formatting RX33 media, insert media to be
formatted in the selected drive.
Do you wish to continue [Y/N] (L) Y ?
ZRQC SYS FTL ERR 00013 ON UNIT 00 TST 001 SUB 000 PC: 105742
Autosizer Failed.
Status: Controller Chip Never Interrupted.
ZRQC SYS FTL ERR 00006 ON UNIT 00 TST 001 SUB 002 PC: 105742
Fatal Controller Error During Initialization.
ZRQC EOP 1
2 TOTAL ERRS
DR>
9 Apr
9 Apr
5:29 a.m.
On 09/04/2007 03:25, David Betz wrote:
I've made some progress on getting my PDP-11/73
system up and running. I
have successfully created an RX50 XXDP boot floppy and have booted XXDP.
My next step was to try to format the RD54 hard drive. I did this by
running the ZRQCH0 (where does this name come from anyway!)
XXDP comprises a large set of diagnostics programs, and the names are
encoded according to function. In this case:
Z -- any PDP-11 processor
RQ - diagnostic for the RQDX series
C -- third diagnostic in this set
H -- eighth revision of this diagnostic
0 -- patch level 0 (ie not patched)
See the first few pages of
http://www.dunnington.u-net.com/public/PDP-11/XXDP.pdf
utility on
the XXDP disk. I took all of the defaults and got the following failure.
Does this indicate that my RQDX3 controller is bad or is this likely to
indicate a bad hard drive?
Since the controller handles the RX50 OK, almost all of it must be
working. If the LED on the RQDX3 goes out a few seconds after
resetting, with the RD54 disconnected, the RQDX3 has passed its
self-test. From the error, I'd say possibly the RD54 has never been
formatted on an RQDX3, or more likely something is wrong with the
jumpers or connections.
Double check that the drive select jumper is correct (normally it should
be DS3; does the drive's LED flash when you run ZRQC?), that the little
control board in the front of your BA23/BA123 with the READY and WRT
PROT buttons is properly connected and those switches are set correctly,
and that the cables from the distribution panel are connected correctly
(with both the RD54 cables connected to the lower-numbered port). It's
just possible you have too old a version of the firmware on the RQDX3
(what are the EPROM numbers?) or that its jumpers (eg W23) are set
wrongly, but this is less likely I think.
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Network Manager
University of York
3:44 p.m.
utility on the
XXDP disk. I took all of the defaults and got the
following failure. Does this indicate that my RQDX3 controller is
bad or is this likely to indicate a bad hard drive?
Since the controller handles the RX50 OK, almost all of it must be
working. If the LED on the RQDX3 goes out a few seconds after
resetting, with the RD54 disconnected, the RQDX3 has passed its
self-test. From the error, I'd say possibly the RD54 has never
been formatted on an RQDX3, or more likely something is wrong with
the jumpers or connections.
Double check that the drive select jumper is correct (normally it
should be DS3; does the drive's LED flash when you run ZRQC?), that
the little control board in the front of your BA23/BA123 with the
READY and WRT PROT buttons is properly connected and those switches
are set correctly, and that the cables from the distribution panel
are connected correctly (with both the RD54 cables connected to the
lower-numbered port). It's just possible you have too old a
version of the firmware on the RQDX3 (what are the EPROM numbers?)
or that its jumpers (eg W23) are set wrongly, but this is less
likely I think.
8:17 p.m.
On 09/04/2007 20:44, David Betz wrote:
You were right about needing to switch drive select to
3. That made it
possible to format the RD54 drive.
Good!
It formatted successfully with 40 bad
LBNs and 7 retired. I also tried formatting my five RD53s and one
formatted successfully with 27 bad LBNs. The other four failed to even
be detected as far as I can tell. Is there any point in playing with
these or would I be better off just trashing them?
RD53s are notoriously unreliable, but I'm surprised that four out of
five simply aren't detected. Are they genuine DEC RD53s? You need to
add a PCB link to an ordinary Micropolis 1325 or 1335 drive to make it
an RD53. Look on the PCB for the location marked R7 (remove two screws
and carefully hinge it up) -- if there's nothing there, solder a link in
that position. Oh, and don't use a skid plate with bare metal with an
RD53, as it can short things out.
Also, how bad are 27-40 bad LBNs? I know that they can
be mapped out but
is this a sign that the drive is dying?
That's not too bad, probably. This is an old drive, with no
intelligence to map out bad sectors itself. Many drives start life with
a few bad blocks, and I'd only worry if the number increased over time.
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Network Manager
University of York
10 Apr
10 Apr
8:17 a.m.
RD53s are notoriously unreliable, but I'm
surprised that four out
of five simply aren't detected. Are they genuine DEC RD53s? You
need to add a PCB link to an ordinary Micropolis 1325 or 1335 drive
to make it an RD53. Look on the PCB for the location marked R7
(remove two screws and carefully hinge it up) -- if there's nothing
there, solder a link in that position. Oh, and don't use a skid
plate with bare metal with an RD53, as it can short things out.
Three of the four failing drives were official DEC RD53 drives as
indicated by a sticker on the top. Interestingly, when Iooked at R7
on the PCB, two of them had the resistor present but one end had been
cut. I soldered it back together but both drives still fail. At least
one of the drives spins up but then back down again. I'm reluctant to
try swapping the PCB between my only working drive and one of the bad
ones so I think I'll just count them as a loss.
8:45 a.m.
On 10/04/2007 13:17, David Betz wrote:
Three of the four failing drives were official DEC
RD53 drives as
indicated by a sticker on the top. Interestingly, when Iooked at R7 on
the PCB, two of them had the resistor present but one end had been cut.
They've probably been cut in order to use the drives on a PC.
I soldered it back together but both drives still
fail. At least one of
the drives spins up but then back down again.
That can happen if the heads are stuck against the end stop inside the
drive. There's a rubber bumper that goes sticky. Alison posted more
information about that just a few days ago.
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Network Manager
University of York
8:58 a.m.
I soldered it
back together but both drives still fail. At least
one of the drives spins up but then back down again.
That can happen if the heads are stuck against the end stop inside
the drive. There's a rubber bumper that goes sticky. Alison
posted more information about that just a few days ago. 
9 Apr
9 Apr
10:35 p.m.
David Betz wrote:
utility on the XXDP disk. I took all of the defaults
and got the
following failure. Does this indicate that my RQDX3 controller is
bad or is this likely to indicate a bad hard drive?
Since the controller handles the RX50 OK, almost all of it must be
working. If the LED on the RQDX3 goes out a few seconds after
resetting, with the RD54 disconnected, the RQDX3 has passed its
self-test. From the error, I'd say possibly the RD54 has never been
formatted on an RQDX3, or more likely something is wrong with the
jumpers or connections.
Double check that the drive select jumper is correct (normally it
should be DS3; does the drive's LED flash when you run ZRQC?), that
the little control board in the front of your BA23/BA123 with the
READY and WRT PROT buttons is properly connected and those switches
are set correctly, and that the cables from the distribution panel
are connected correctly (with both the RD54 cables connected to the
lower-numbered port). It's just possible you have too old a version
of the firmware on the RQDX3 (what are the EPROM numbers?) or that
its jumpers (eg W23) are set wrongly, but this is less likely I think.
Also, how bad are 27-40 bad LBNs? I know that they can be mapped out
but is this a sign that the drive is dying?
If you consider how many blocks in 159 MBytes, that
is VERY few! And the bad LBNs are mapped out during
the format. The software only sees a continuous map
even though the RDQX3 will substitute blocks from the
end (AFAIK) of the drive which does slow things down
just a bit, but not enough to be concerned.
Based on my understanding of how long an RD54 lasts,
I doubt that your RD54 is dying.
Sincerely yours,
Jerome Fine
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7 comments
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participants (3)
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dbetz＠xlisper.com -
jhfinedp3k＠compsys.to -
pete＠dunnington.plus.com