Why can't I boot tape on 3B2/600?

[~XT6561340~Tom J. Toeller~C29~M19~6092~]

In article <498 at mtndew.Tustin.CA.US>, friedl at mtndew.Tustin.CA.US (Steve Friedl) writes:
>      When I try to boot the machine, it does the SELF TEST and
> then hangs, presumably trying to filledt or run diagnostics off
> the hard disk.  If I hit the reset, I get the traditional SYSTEM
> FAILURE HAS OCCURRED, but the only boot device it allows me is
> FD5 -- no SCSI choice.  This is not a case of simply a missing
> name for an existing slot that would happen if filledt failed:
> the choices just aren't there.
> 
>      When I try to boot the essential utilities floppy to run
> filledt, it fills a few slots and then powers down the machine:
> great!  I can't boot dgmon or /unix either.  None of this changes
> if I reset the NVRAM first.
> 
What you need is a giagnostic disk built on a similar machine, or the
Maintenance Utilities floppy. This comes with the 3B2 Maintenance Reference
Manual. The current release of the floppy is Rel 4.0. This floppy will work
for any 3B2 (300-1000/80). There is no longer any reference to "600filledt"
required. The boot block has the smarts to use the appropriate code for
whatever hardware you have.

Anyway, diagnostics on floppy will let you fiqure out why the SCSI bus is
hosed. With this floppy, you can strip a version 3 machine down to just the
system board and 1 memory board.

About the power down problem! This will happen when you attempt to use
certain versions of filledt from older machines. That is why, if you make
your own dgn floppy, it is only good for like machines, or lesser machines
of the same hardware release. For example, a floppy made on a 700 will work
an another 700, a 600, 500, but not a 400 or 300. A floppy made on a 400 will
work on another 400, a 300, but not a 500 or larger.

The moral of the story is: Buy the book, get the floppy which works on all
3B2 machines, and you will have a great tool and a book for reference.