UNIX 4.1c on VAX-11/780 with UDA50

[Lawrence R Rogers]

For the last week, I have been trying madly to install UNIX 4.1c on a 
VAX-11/780 at Siemens AG in Munich, West Germany.  I did this same job
in November, 1983, on the same machine no less, and was successful then.
I'd like to know if anyone else has run into wild problems with a VAX and
the UDA50.

Here's the hardware configuration:
	VAX-11/780
	4 Mb memory (64K chips)
	2 TU78
	1 UDA50 with 3 RA81 on UBA0
	6 DMF32 - 2 on UBA0 4 on UBA1
	1 DMR11 on UBA0
	1 DPU11 on UBA0 (I know it's not supported, but it's  
		hold-over from the days of VMS on this machine)

The system gets hard errors and SDI errors.  On diagnosis (evrla - run over
an entire week-end), I only get correctable ecc errors on blocks
in the last cylinder.  I talked with DEC in Merrimack, NH, about potential
bugs in the UDA50 driver, and posted the ones they told me about.  I realize
that I could have done that wrong, but I don't think so (hopefully).

I've literally done everything with this machine - including running micro
diagnostics, UBA diagnostics, and the like.  Still, I get this hard errors
and SDI errors.  For the sake of my own sanity, which is waining after
sticking my head inside of a VAX for 6 days, I'd like to know if other folks
have had any similar troubles - and hopefully how you solved them.

Also, I run into trouble on this machine with the floopy boot program - it
just seems to spin in a tight loop, waiting for the UDA50 to tell it something.
Repeated re-executions of the same boot produce the same result.  The fix -
power down memory and the DC power.  When powered up again, everything is
allright.  I used to think I understood this stuff, but now I am quite
perplexed.

Comments from anyone greatly appreciated.  My real mailing address is:

				...!princeton!siemens!lrr

I'm just in Germany, drinking the beer!  I wonder if the problem has to
do with the 220V/50 Cycle AC they have over here.  Probably not.

P.S. - VMS ran on this machine in the time between when I installed UNIX in
November and now (February).  I know these UDA50/RA81 combinations are quite
intelligent - do you think that the drive is retaining some information
from its VMS days and won't let me override that info?  That's a shot in the
dark, but I thought I heard something once about UDA50/RA81s remembering
the status of open files across reboots/power shutdowns.  What's the solution?

P.S.S. - Thanks to the folks at DEC who offered the software solutions -
I'm sure they were correct, but they didn't solve whatever problem I have 
with this machine.

P.S.S.S. - I have Fujitsu Eagles on my system in Princeton - to those of
you considering Eagles and RA81 - go with the Eagles.