[...]
> OS in another place helps to scribble on the disks. I've got VMS (and
> am trying to get away from it!)  I'm really trying to do things with a
> single disk.  I'm sure there are probably others like myself who either
> don't have a network available, or don't have a networking card.
> As it is, I don't have a TK50.

For now you need at least a TK50 or both a floppy and a network if you 
want to install NetBSD. Without TK50 and without network I see no way.
It's possible to install miniroot from floppy, but the current kernels
can't access floppies, so you can't install all the rest ...

> I've tried several things including:
> 
> +	VMS copy miniroot.fs to the drive. Use it to dd itself to ra0g.
> 	mount ra0g and modify things so that filesystem would in some
> 	way remount root as writable. Then boot from ra0g, using ra0g
> 	as it's root. This would allow labeling of a disk from a miniroot.
> 
> 	If that didn't totally work, copy the reno miniroot to ra0a,
> 	use NetBSD miniroot on ra0g to dd ra0a to ra0b, and maybe even
> 	write a disk label...  then boot ra0b.
> 
> -   This all fails because ra0a/b is still your root partition, even when
>     you say to get boot from g, and put the root on ra0g. Files I've created
>     or modified ra0g are there, not in your 'current' root.
> 
> +	put the root.cpio on RX50, and then cpio it in from there...
> 
> -   the miniroot doesn't read from RX50
> 	I understand the docs clearly now, it's likes a TK50 or network.
> 
> I'm about to just copy root.fs right to the drive and boot it.

Another possibility would be to copy miniroot onto disk. Then boot from
it and use racopy to install miniroot from disk (actually in 'a'-partition)
into 'b'-partition. Now boot from 'b'-partition (give ra0* as root-device)
and disklabel/partition the drive and reinitialize 'a'-partition.
The only problem I see with that procedure is that I see no way to
install all the other binaries ...

> Also, This came up but was never discussed (that I saw):
> > why racopy wanted to always install on the a-partition of
> > a disk then optionally onto another partition.

There are (were) two reasons for that: 
- old bootblocks loaded /boot from the 'a'-partition, so it had to be
  there. More recent bootblocks can load /boot from any partition (b/7)
- when you have a two-disk setup, then 'a'-partition from the first drive
  is all you need in order to initialize/setup the second drive

I've made a few modifications to racopy so that installation of
bootblocks and installation into 'a'-partition is now optional. 
Now it's also possible to use the new versions of miniroot/microroot 
as emergency tapes/floppies.

> It's my 'guess' that miniroot.fs has a boot block and maybe a label in
> it's first blocks.  This explains how you can boot from the drive you
> just installed on, using b/1/3/7/whatever. (Oh, could someone
> explain the difference? b/1 works fine for me, docs suggest b/3 or b/7 ...)

Boot-commands for MicroVAX II
-----------------------------
 
At the console type
 
        >>> b duaN              to boot vmunix/netbsd "normally" from disk #N
or
        >>> b/1 duaN            to boot different kernel (Nboot-prompt)
or
        >>> b/2 duaN            to boot into single-user mode
or
        >>> b/4 duaN            to load /boot from another partition
 
or any combination of these. (Bootflags are defined in <sys/reboot.h>)
 
> Lastly, Does anyone know of a maximum of RD/RX drives that can be put
> in/attached to the uVaxII, assuming correct power distribution and cabling.

with RQDX3 you can have up to 2 RD and 2 RX devices. With an extension
board (RQDXE??) up to 4 RD devices.

> Maybe it's just the configuration of the RD51 I tried to put in that
> I ended up with colliding device ID's (or so it seemed). I don't have
> docs on the RD51 to know what ID it has, I was going with what the
> owner's manual says "Give it an ID, but it doesn't matter which. VMB or
> the controller card will assign the drive an ID in the order in which
> it's found."   I thought I wiped out a drive because of that!...

If you've only a single drive then it's usually jumpered with drive-id
3 and 4, then the controller will do the rest. 
With two drives one drive needs to be jumpered as ID 3 (only) and the
other one as ID 4 (only). At least this worked on my system ...

Ciao,
	bertram