First, I apologize in advance to anyone who feels this post deviates from 
the discussion of the group too much... :-)

On Thu, 6 Oct 1994, Bertram Barth wrote:
> You can use the formatter on the Diagnostic Tape (MVII DIAG CUST TK50)
> on a MicroVAX II or you could use the ROM-based formatter on a VAXstation 2000.
> (I used the first method for a Micropolis 1335 and the second method for
> a Seagate ST251. Both disks were out of PC's and were never in touch with
> a VAX before)
This is a situation for which I've gotten mixed responses on the 'Net.
I have the Customer Field Diag. tape, and there is a formatter in there.
However, it won't format my drive.  It *does* recognize it as an RD54 (it 
says so before beginning the format) but the format fails about 10 
minutes into it.  The drive does format on a PC, where it came from.

I've had some people tell me that the format program on the _Customer_ 
tape is actually only a *re-formatter*; therefore, it won't do my drive.
I have no way of confirming any of this.  But I do know the drive is 
good, yet it won't format.  :-(

Supposedly the real, actual Field Diag. tape that DEC service people use 
has a *real* formatter on it, one that doesn't care what the drive is 
currently formatted for.  Not that I understand why this should make a 
difference as far as formatting the drive.  Why would a format program 
care what kind of machine the drive was already formatted for, or is it 
something DEC did to be annoying?  ;-)

Also, how did you get a not-typical-DEC-drive such as an ST-251 to format 
and be acknoledged?  This is interesting, in case my XT-2190 ever barfs.  
It's definitely no spring chicken!  :-)

> I'd say it's more easy to use RX33. They are the same as any 1.2MB drive
> on PCs (the RX33 i have in my uVAX II is directly out of a PC). So one
> could use "dd" on unix-machines and "rawrite" on DOS-machines to create
> boot-disks for the VAX.
This I didn't know!!  That's a great solution.  Which controllers support 
the RX33, or do all of them?  I know mine will do the RX50 but I can't 
remember the model number off hand.

> Maybe it's possible to have a similiar procedure as NetBSD for i386:
> You have 3 boot-floppies (RX33?) which install a mini-system on your
> disk. This mini-system already supports tape-drives and network (ie ftp).
> So you can get and install the rest of the system on either way.
> It would also be possible to install the complete system from floppies
> and there would be a possibility to install without having bootable
> tapes and without MOP/netboot. (It's not too easy to produce bootable
> tapes on a VAX without OS or to netboot a standalone machine :).
This sounds like the best idea yet.  This would work for me very well; I 
could write boot images using the 1.2 drive in my PC, swap the drive into 
the Vax long enough to boot a mini-system and setup the HD, etc., and then
shutdown and remove the 1.2 from the Vax and return it to my PC.

Jonathan
jonathan@cc.odu.edu