VAXstation 3100 M38 Disk Problem?

I have installed a 1GB IBM SCSI disk in my VAXstation 3100 M38 and I am
using it as the system disk. I have installed VMS and everything seems to be
fine, except for one thing. When I shut down the machine I get the following
error:

CANNOT WRITE SYSTEM DUMP; INITIALIZATION OF
CONTROLLER FAILED.

Furthermore the TEST 50 command reports a status of 000000D4 and I get the
dreaded ?? for the SCSI controller. But the machine otherwise seems OK.
Should I be concerned?

NB This is a hobbyist system, not used for any business purpose.

Regards

Rob

Robert Jarratt wrote:
[color=blue]
> Furthermore the TEST 50 command reports a status of 000000D4 and I get the
> dreaded ?? for the SCSI controller. But the machine otherwise seems OK.
> Should I be concerned?[/color]

Rob, have you checked the manual to find out what this error status
is? It could be a simple termination problem maybe? Is the SCSI cable
terminated?

See if the manual is on vt100.net.

Regards, Mark.

"urbancamo" <mark@wickensonline.co.uk> wrote in message
news:1189111757.148470.309060@57g2000hsv.googlegroups.com...[color=blue]
>
> Robert Jarratt wrote:
>[color=green]
>> Furthermore the TEST 50 command reports a status of 000000D4 and I get
>> the
>> dreaded ?? for the SCSI controller. But the machine otherwise seems OK.
>> Should I be concerned?[/color]
>
> Rob, have you checked the manual to find out what this error status
> is? It could be a simple termination problem maybe? Is the SCSI cable
> terminated?
>
> See if the manual is on vt100.net.
>
> Regards, Mark.
>[/color]

I should have said that I have looked in the manual and this error code is
not listed.

In article <kvZDi.49958$ie3.21096@newsfe3-gui.ntli.net>, "Robert Jarratt" <nospam@nosp.am> writes:
[color=blue]
> I have installed a 1GB IBM SCSI disk in my VAXstation 3100 M38 and I am
> using it as the system disk.[/color]

I thought the boot ROM on that model was limited to smaller disks.
If so any patch, upgrade, or disk restore (other than /physical)
could render the system unbootable.
[color=blue]
> I have installed VMS and everything seems to be
> fine, except for one thing. When I shut down the machine I get the following
> error:
>
> CANNOT WRITE SYSTEM DUMP; INITIALIZATION OF
> CONTROLLER FAILED.
>[/color]

Well VMS, which seem to have been running from that disk, is
responsible for writing the system dump. Does the dump file
exist and is it a proper dump file (contiguous, nomove, ...) as
SYSGEN creates them?

Is it possible that dump-off-system-disk is partially configured?

"Bob Koehler" <koehler@eisner.nospam.encompasserve.org> wrote in message
news:HloQFdVTwxDX@eisner.encompasserve.org...[color=blue]
> In article <kvZDi.49958$ie3.21096@newsfe3-gui.ntli.net>, "Robert Jarratt"
> <nospam@nosp.am> writes:
>[color=green]
>> I have installed a 1GB IBM SCSI disk in my VAXstation 3100 M38 and I am
>> using it as the system disk.[/color]
>
> I thought the boot ROM on that model was limited to smaller disks.
> If so any patch, upgrade, or disk restore (other than /physical)
> could render the system unbootable.
>[color=green]
>> I have installed VMS and everything seems to be
>> fine, except for one thing. When I shut down the machine I get the
>> following
>> error:
>>
>> CANNOT WRITE SYSTEM DUMP; INITIALIZATION OF
>> CONTROLLER FAILED.
>>[/color]
>
> Well VMS, which seem to have been running from that disk, is
> responsible for writing the system dump. Does the dump file
> exist and is it a proper dump file (contiguous, nomove, ...) as
> SYSGEN creates them?
>
> Is it possible that dump-off-system-disk is partially configured?
>[/color]

All I did was install VMS in the same way that I have installed it on my
other VAXen, I did not do anything different. I will look at the things you
suggest, but I am not familiar with them, so if you have any good pointers
to get me started I would appreciate it.

One other thing that might be of note is that when I do a shutdown the
machine automatically restarts after the controller error. I am not sure if
this is a firmware setting or the consequence of the error.

Regards

Rob

In article <PV%Di.50848$h11.5018@newsfe7-gui.ntli.net>, "Robert Jarratt" <nospam@nosp.am> writes:[color=blue]
>
> All I did was install VMS in the same way that I have installed it on my
> other VAXen, I did not do anything different. I will look at the things you
> suggest, but I am not familiar with them, so if you have any good pointers
> to get me started I would appreciate it.[/color]

I'm the boot disk size limitations are discussed in the comp.os.vms FAQ.
The limit appears to be 1.073 GB (1fffff blocks in hex). If certain
critical files are actually located inside the 1fffff limit the
system will boot.
[color=blue]
>
> One other thing that might be of note is that when I do a shutdown the
> machine automatically restarts after the controller error. I am not sure if
> this is a firmware setting or the consequence of the error.[/color]

The system should only reboot as a result of requesting it when
running sys$system:shutdown.com. Firmware tells the system what to
do on power on and on crash, but does not override the shutdown.com
answer. Sounds like something is messing things up so that the
console thinks your system crashed or took a power-on interrupt.

"Bob Koehler" <koehler@eisner.nospam.encompasserve.org> wrote in message
news:a809l96fMVUo@eisner.encompasserve.org...[color=blue]
> In article <PV%Di.50848$h11.5018@newsfe7-gui.ntli.net>, "Robert Jarratt"
> <nospam@nosp.am> writes:[color=green]
>>
>> All I did was install VMS in the same way that I have installed it on my
>> other VAXen, I did not do anything different. I will look at the things
>> you
>> suggest, but I am not familiar with them, so if you have any good
>> pointers
>> to get me started I would appreciate it.[/color]
>
> I'm the boot disk size limitations are discussed in the comp.os.vms FAQ.
> The limit appears to be 1.073 GB (1fffff blocks in hex). If certain
> critical files are actually located inside the 1fffff limit the
> system will boot.
>[/color]

The console reports the disk to 1.08GB, just a fraction over, so I suspect
this might be my problem.

[color=blue][color=green]
>>
>> One other thing that might be of note is that when I do a shutdown the
>> machine automatically restarts after the controller error. I am not sure
>> if
>> this is a firmware setting or the consequence of the error.[/color]
>
> The system should only reboot as a result of requesting it when
> running sys$system:shutdown.com. Firmware tells the system what to
> do on power on and on crash, but does not override the shutdown.com
> answer. Sounds like something is messing things up so that the
> console thinks your system crashed or took a power-on interrupt.
>[/color]

Robert Jarratt wrote:[color=blue]
> I have installed a 1GB IBM SCSI disk in my VAXstation 3100 M38 and I am
> using it as the system disk. I have installed VMS and everything seems to be
> fine, except for one thing. When I shut down the machine I get the following
> error:
>
> CANNOT WRITE SYSTEM DUMP; INITIALIZATION OF
> CONTROLLER FAILED.
>
> Furthermore the TEST 50 command reports a status of 000000D4 and I get the
> dreaded ?? for the SCSI controller. But the machine otherwise seems OK.
> Should I be concerned?[/color]

IIRC, status D4 is reported when the SCSI Inquiry ID is longer than 15
characters. SHOW DEV usually shows this, so if the text appears to be
truncated, that is probably the problem.

This is not really a problem, but will keep the system from autobooting.

1GB drives in a VAXstation 3100 can be problematic. Some drives are
just over the 1GB limit for that machine, some are under. You really
need to query the drive with a SCSI tool and find out its exact capacity
in blocks in hex.

Also, newer SCSI drives may have bits of SCSI 3 in them. Sometimes this
can cause confusion. I think VMS 6.2 and later are better about this,
but it can be a problem with VMS 5.5-2.

Good luck!

--
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Chris Scheers, Applied Synergy, Inc.

Voice: 817-237-3360 Internet: [email]chris@applied-synergy.com[/email]
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