>> sd0 at scsibus1 target 0 lun 0: <DEC, RZ1CB-BA (C) DEC, LYE0> disk fixed
>> sd0: drive offline
>
> If the drive is not configured to not auto-spin at power up, it'll only
> spin up if you attemps a read or write access. Does e.g. disklabel sd0
> make it spin ?

It begins to spin at poweron. This is the boot drive, and yes, it works 
both before and after the scan says it's offline.

John