First VAX-11/730 VMS Boot! (was: Re: VAX-11/730 %BOOT-F-Unexpected Machine Check)

[Mark J. Blair]

> On Jun 12, 2015, at 04:01, Peter Coghlan <cctalk at beyondthepale.ie> wrote:
> 
> If the machine just sits there indefinately after loading the MSCP disk server,
> you probably don't have enough cluster votes to proceed and the best thing to
> do is perform a conversational boot which usually involves setting the least
> significant bit of register R5 to 1 before booting.  How exactly to do this
> varies from processor to processor and I don't know how to do it for an 11/730.
> 
> When you manage to do this and try booting again, you should get a "SYSBOOT>"
> prompt and you could:
> 
> SHOW VAXCLUSTER
> SHOW VOTES
> SHOW EXPECTED_VOTES
> SET VAXCLUSTER 0
> SET WRITESYSPARAMS 0
> CONTINUE
> 
> to confirm that the issue is with cluster votes, turn off clustering and
> proceed with the boot process.

Thanks, that works! I also turned off write lock, which makes it happier.

Wow, that boot sure takes forever. What the heck is it *doing* for all of that time? :)

And at the moment, it's still booting, as I sip my morning coffee. Just started printing like heck and beeping... Ah, it's printing all of the licenses that have terminated. Maybe I should have lied about the date? Looks like the hostname is PIKE. Sure glad my iPhone boots more quietly.

VMS use not authorized on this node. I sure hope it won't enforce that before I can try a backup!

Finally! A login prompt! And no clue about the passwords. Uh, how can I shut this beast down without a  valid login? !?

Great. :)

-- 
Mark J. Blair, NF6X <nf6x at nf6x.net>
http://www.nf6x.net/