4.2 BSD Installation problem

[Chris Torek]

In article <491 at ms3.UUCP>, msitd22 at ms3.UUCP (Jim Chappell) writes:
>I am installing virgin 4.2 on several VAX 11/780's.

(Why?  You should be installing 4.3.  Anyway...)

>uda0: hard error, disk transfer error, unit 0, grp 0x0, hdr  0xb1558
>uda0: hard error, SDI error, unit 0, event 0353, hdr 0x0 

The 4.2BSD UDA50 driver prints `hard error' messages for many soft
errors.  If the hard error message is not followed by another error
of the form `ra%d: hard error sn%d', it was a soft error.

`event 0353' is, I think, a `1 symbol ecc data error'.  `hdr 0xb1558'
indicates that the error was associated with logical block 0xb1558.
None of this is very reliable information.

The 4.3BSD driver is only slightly better.  A much-improved driver
may soon be available.  (CDC is replacing an HDA here; until then
the driver is not going anywhere.)  This one has pinpointed a number
of RA81/UDA50 problems locally, from failing HDAs to a bad port on
a UDA50.  (The last was a guess on my part: `ctlr detected pulse
or parity data error' sounded like a problem in the drive-to-controller
cables or serial interface.  It was.  VMS diagnostics could not
find the problem, but moving the cables proved it.)
-- 
In-Real-Life: Chris Torek, Univ of MD Comp Sci Dept (+1 301 454 7690)
UUCP:	seismo!mimsy!chris	ARPA/CSNet:	chris at mimsy.umd.edu