In case of problems booting the VAX:

Usually this happens only when one of the disks didn't mount.

If you watched the booting process, you probably saw an error message (in addition to the ones you get due to discontinued expired licenses). This is of course the easiest way of finding out which one of the disks poses the problem.

If you used the time the booting took to do something else and missed the error message nothing is lost either.

If you manage to log in at all (whether it executes your login.com file or gives you an error message already tells you something: if it can't see your login directory it must be the user disk), type SHOW DEVICE D. It will list all devices starting with a D (all our disks start with a D) and should look like this:

Device                  Device           Error    Volume         Free  Trans Mnt
 Name                   Status           Count     Label        Blocks Count Cnt
$1$DKA300:    (ALPHA1)  Mounted              0  (remote mount)                 1
$1$DKB0:      (ALPHA1)  Mounted              0  USER3           168366     3   2
$1$DKB500:    (ALPHA1)  Online               0
$2$DKA300:      (VAX1)  Mounted              0  OPENVMS060       76347   313   2
$2$DKA500:      (VAX1)  Online               0
$2$DKB0:        (VAX1)  Mounted              2  USER            200541    75   2
$2$DKB200:      (VAX1)  Mounted              0  USER2           651585    19   2
$2$DKB400:      (VAX1)  Online wrtlck        0

Explanation of what is what:

$1$DKA300 is the Alpha's system disk. It is in the Alpha's own box on internal SCSI bus. Its label is ALPHAVMS010 - just in case you need it. I sometimes have in the past
$1$DKB0 is the Alpha's USER3 disk, it is an Andataco box on the external SCSI bus
$1$DKA500 is the 4GB BIGDISK which doesn't get mounted by default because it sometimes doesn't. It is in an Andataco box together with a high density DAT drive on the Alpha's external SCSI bus.

$2$DKA300 is the VAX's system disk, it is in the VAX's own box on internal SCSI bus
$2$DKB0 is the VAX's USER disk, it is on the external SCSI bus in the 'pizza box' (= DIGITAL EQUIPMENT expansion box)
$2$DKB200 is the VAX's USER2 disk, on the external SCSI bus, the box next to the (low density) DAT (4mm) tape drive
$2$DKB400 is the CD-rom drive. It shares the same box with the VAX's user disk (DEC expansion box = pizza box), i.e. it also is on the external SCSI bus.

If one of these doesn't show up, power cycle it and reboot the VAX (again).

You can also, to make sure that it worked, type SH DEV (an abbreviation for SHOW DEVICES) at the boot prompt. That should give you all devices on SCSI bus(es). The internal SCSI bus has the devices in the VAX box (in the wooden shelf), the external SCSI (of cours, also in the wooden shelf) bus has the devices in the pizza box under the VAX, the stack on the right of the VAX, and the GPIB controller-A/D converter (on top of the VAX). The internal SCSI bus should show the system disk and the floppy drive. The external SCSI bus should show (in this sequence): the user disk, the A/D converter (GPIB controller), the user2 disk, the DAT drive, and the CD-rom. If one or more of the external devices doesn't show up it is a good idea to check the SCSI cables in the back of the stack they may have got bumped. (Very unlikely in case of the internal SCSI bus. In case you have problems with the internal devices that don't go away by power cycling the VAX (please don't just switch it off, try to properly shut it down), it is a case for the DEC engineer - we have a 5 day a week during office hours service contract).

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

back to CSO documentation page
back to CSO reference page