<Has anyone on this list used an RZ56/7 successfully on a VAX?  If so
<then perhaps we can compare notes to find out what the problem is.

Would a pair of BA42s with 2 RZ56s each on a VS3100M10e and a 3100m76 do?
I have both configs and they work just fine with VMS 5.4 and 7.2.
All the drives are NOT set to start on power on.  Also both 3100 have 
RZ24s and RZ25s in them. The VS3100m10E has a TLZ30 so the configs are not 
light and rock solid.

Also the PC (win3.1) has a ISA scsi(futuredomain) and two RZ56s in ba42s.
The futuredomain is SCSI-1 and does the startup request on the drives at 
boot time just fine

I'd say likely it's a NetBSD config probe issue.

Allison