At 11:31 PM 3/26/00 +0100, Dan Kolb wrote:
>Hi all you knowledgeable Vax people,

Hi Dan,

>... What could cause the problem, and
>what exactly *are* the Test numbers (i.e. what does each test do)?

 From previous posts the test is the clock. You've probably got a marginal 
battery and so when it boots the first time it has no clue what time it is, 
then after its been on for 5 minutes it charges up enough to get through 
the selftest. You should also be able to simply push the reset button on 
the front (without needing to power cycle it)

>Secondly, with regards to netbooting NetBSD - the kernels seems to load
>fine, but then it complains about nfs-timeouts. I read on a previous
>post that giving nfsd the no-version 3 (or similar, don't have it to
>hand) should work. However, nfsd doesn't accept the parameter. Is there
>a hidden trick anywhere? Or am I missing something blatently obvious?

Who gives the time outs? (the vax or the server. Does the server even see 
the request?) What OS is your NFS server running? Linux? Again, the 
archives have the answer for Linux (I'm not where I could search them at 
the moment so I'll have to leave you with simply the pointer.)

>Also, I've got an RA90 and two RA81s (or so the console reports) set as
>DUB0, DUB1 and DUB2. I don't have a DUAx drive as the hard disk was
>dead, so I've taken it out.

Presumably when you "took it out" you left the controller card in? If not 
and there is a gap in the bus then you will need to insert a BUS GRANT card 
where the missing controller was. It sounds like your working controller is 
the M7169 model (quad SDI drives) (dual boards) You may choose to pull the 
board set and rejumper it to be controller 1. I believe the jumpers for 
this board set are online as well.

>I need to install VMS on the RA90 (get some
>data off the other drives). However, when I try to install the VMS tape
>image, it complains about not being able to create the filesystem, and
>that the medium is offline. Why?

Either the controller is missing interrupts (gap in the bus), the control 
panel for the drive has the online/offline button popped out, or the drive 
has detected an internal failure (can't come up to speed) and thus is 
holding the 'rdy' line low. (if it were a removable drive then there could 
also be no media in the drive.)

>What can I do to rectify this?

Figure out what's wrong and fix it. :-)

>  Can VMS
>not be installed onto a DUB device; if not, how would I change the DUB
>devices to DUA - is it just swapping some cables, or is there something
>more in-depth to do?

VMS can be installed on a DUB volume, and booted from that volume. You can 
also rejumper the controller to make it the first MSCP controller.

>Sorry for some (slightly) off-topic questions, but hopefully you people
>should be able to help.

comp.sys.vms is also a good place to ask.
--Chuck