Dear DECstation enthusiasts,

I was recently recruited by my college's Linux Users' Group to do some 
support for their main server, a DS 5000/260 running NetBSD 1.4.1 (OS 
comments to yourself :-P )

Anyhow, it was fine for the first few minutes, but then I was running a 
pretty standard command ("ifconfig -A" if I recall) and it dumped me out to 
the debugger.  I rebooted, ran the full set of tests, and came up with only 
the following:

"? TFL: 3/ni/ext-lb (3:(xmt [00000006])) [KN05]"

which as far as I know is just an ethernet error, most likely because the 
machine is not currently on the 'net.

possible useful info (these are transcriptions by hand, so the spacing 
isn't exact):

--
>> printenv
boot=3/rz2/netbsd -a
haltaction=b
more=0
scsiid3=7
#=3
console=0
osconsole=3
--

ROM is KN05 v2.1k, TC slot 0 contains a PMAD-AA.  rz1 is an RRD42; rz2, rz3 
and rz5 are all ST42400N drives as reported by "cnfg 3" (at first... read 
on).

So I said "boot" and this happened:

--
>>boot
1468632

KN05 V2.1k  (PC: 0xa002cab8, SP: 0x8070fd50)
--

and then retried indefinitely, producing the same error over and over.  I 
noticed that the RRD42 had a CD in it and was being accessed during boot 
attempts; I ejected it and tried to boot again.  This time absolutely 
nothing happened.  I then broke out of that and ran "cnfg 3" again and it 
hung probing for SCSI disks.

So... what's the consensus on the problem?  Is it the SCSI controller, or 
the RRD42 (my money's on that - flaky pieces of crap), or one of the disks? 
I have a PMAZ controller that I can put in the machine, and all of the 
disks are loaded into two storage expansion cabs that I could connect to my 
DECstation 5000/120 for testing.  I just wanted opinions before I had to 
physically get at the machine - it's under quite a lot of heavy stuff at 
the moment.

Thanks all, and I hope I can save this.  I wouldn't want to have to get rid 
of a top of the line DS or have to lose any of the data on the hard drives! 
If any more info is needed, I can get it ASAP.

-Henry Bent
henry.bent@oberlin.edu