--- rick@snowhite writes:
 - put root.fs on an RDxx drive

Yes. root.fs didn't seem to be out there the first time the pre-pre-alpha
was released. I noted it about a week ago.  In any case, I for one
appreciate it's being added.  I loaded it up and booted it last night.
Works like a charm.

 - if you get that far, the disk should boot single user when installed in
   the target uvaxii.

Boots read-only, since there's no /etc/fstab. I'm not certain I told it
single user.

  - to build a /usr, you might try either..
    - doing the newfs after booting the root single user and then laoding
      the tar files from another drive (the file system will have to be
      some variant of UFS/FFS. Ultrix's fs might be mountable read-only)

Almost exactly what I had anticipated.  I was actually hoping to
get away with one unix disk. Figuring I could get g broken into d & g
by evenutally re-labeling, I'd put root on d and /usr on g. swap could
hang out unless I really needed it.  That would leave me 'a' free to
scribble on (I've learned that VMS knows nothing about partitions, have
to write at block 0). I'd have to use the floppy to boot when the
bootblock gets trashed, but I figured it could work. I'll let you
know if it can't, and if not, why.

My questions regarding the number of drives was because was attempting
what you propose above.  I swiped an rd51 from my Pro350 to use
temporarily as a disk to store images.  That would act as a go-between
for two OS's when the tape drive is not usable. With the rd51 in the
system I have ID conflicts or something. And to think I trusted the
owners manual!

Zach