Hello there,

I'm new here and new to NetBSD/VAX also. I just recently was given an old
MicroVAX II to play with and am trying to install NetBSD since. For the
records:

It's a MicroVAX II with a bigger case than that shown in the pics on the
NetBSD-vax site. It has two r?54 disks and a tk50. Ah, and don't forget
that Emulex7 SCSI-Adapter.

Sorry here for the incomplete names. I'm at the university now and all I
write is from memory.

I would want to use a 2,7GB Seagate ST43400 (which fits nicely into the
system beeing 5 1/4" full height) for NetBSD and leave the other disks
alone. (They hold VMS6.2 which I would like to keep).

First thing I notice is the size of the disk. 2.7GB
(21sect/99trck/2735cyls) is too big as I read
it? Is it possible to use partitions a-e in the first half and make a
dedicated "home"partition in h for the rest? This would enshure that the
boot code would reside in an area the bios can load I thought. Any
comments?

I the tried to load 1.2-RELEASE to it. The copy of the miniroot will work,
but when I tried to boot the miniroot it crashed. I then tried the
snapshot of 03/15/97. There the boottape loads but I can't start
disklabel. It keeps asking for which disk to label no matter what I give
it. I managed to copy the 1.2-snapshot miniroot to the disk using the
1.2-RELEASE boot-tape.

Now booting the miniroot works. I mounted ra0a to /mnt and ra0e to
/mnt/usr. I downloaded netbsd.GENERIC and boot to /mnt and the rest to
/mnt/usr/tmp via ftp. All exactly as described in the FAQ. I edited the
files mentioned there and called MAKEDEV and all that. Now I do try to
boot the thing:

First time there was a line starting with NetBSD and then some characters
which look like a false terminal to me. At a second attempt I was able to
get a Login: prompt by pressing return some times. I entered root and when
hitting return the machine worked fore some seconds and then seemed to
hang. 

What might be of interrest: I still have to enter the root-partition when
booting. The line before that tells me that the boot-device is unknown. I
have a fstab file in etc which I edited on a separate machine and ftp'ed
there. 

I seem to recall that I used a bootdisk of version 1.1A to boot the
miniroot 'cause this is much faster. Could that be of evil with the
following call to disklabel -B ? 

Is there anyone who can make some sense out of this? Any questions to ask
me? Or instant advice? Any help ist appreciated.

One question not answered in the FAQ is
how to copy the bootimage to the RX50. How does one do this?

 Oliver.

ps: I have to apologise for my bad knowledge of the english language.
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Oliver Bruckauf                            http://www.poboxes.com/bruckauf
                                               email: bruckauf@poboxes.com
TeamOS/2 Germany (#540)                                  Fido: 2:2448/1414
Words to the Wise:      Air conditioned environment - Do not open Windows.
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