From: SMTP%"RELAY-INFO-VAX@CRVAX.SRI.COM" 7-JUL-1993 10:25:59.75 To: EVERHART CC: Subj: Summary: Floppy disks with DECStation 3100 X-Newsgroups: comp.os.vms From: agati@uts340.univ.trieste.it (Paolo Agati) Subject: Summary: Floppy disks with DECStation 3100 Message-ID: Followup-To: comp.os.vms Sender: news@math.fu-berlin.de (Math Department) Organization: Universita' di Trieste - DEEI Date: Wed, 7 Jul 1993 12:52:36 GMT Lines: 209 To: Info-VAX@KL.SRI.COM X-Gateway-Source-Info: USENET Trieste, July 7th 1993 Thanks to everybody, now we can read and write floppie on our DECStation (even ms-dos floppies). The summary of the answers I got follows here: From MERRILL@stsci.edu Mon Jun 28 17:18:53 1993 Received: from DECNET-MAIL (MERRILL@STOSC) by avion.stsci.edu (PMDF #3144 ) id <01GZWRKC8JWGE476YW@avion.stsci.edu>; Mon, 28 Jun 1993 11:17:59 EDT Date: 28 Jun 1993 11:17:59 -0400 (EDT) From: Clark Subject: Re: Floppy disks with DECStation 3100 To: agati@uts340.univ.trieste.it Message-Id: <01GZWRKC8TK2E476YW@avion.stsci.edu> X-Vms-To: stscic::smtp%"agati@uts340.univ.trieste.it" X-Vms-Cc: MERRILL Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Status: RO Path: stsci.edu!merrill From: merrill@stsci.edu (Clark Merrill) Newsgroups: comp.os.vms Subject: Re: Floppy disks with DECStation 3100 Summary: Date: 28 Jun 1993 11:18 EST Followup-To: comp.os.vms Distribution: world Keywords: Message-ID: <28JUN199311185454@stsci.edu> References: Organization: Space Telescope Science Institute News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.50 In article , agati@uts340.univ.trieste.it (Paolo Agati) writes... >Trieste, June 28th 1993 > >Hi there, >here at our laboratory we have a problem with our DECStation 3100: >the machine is equipped with one floppy drive but we haven't managed >to format any disk with it, altough we have read TFM. >Could someone please tell us how to format a floppy on that station? > The command to initialize the disk is $ INIT/DENSITY=DOUBLE DUA2 label_name Hope this helps. Clark B. Merrill Space Telescope Science Institute Baltimore, Maryland merrill@stsci.edu =================================================================== From mip@castle.edinburgh.ac.uk Mon Jun 28 18:55:13 1993 Via: uk.ac.edinburgh.castle; Mon, 28 Jun 1993 17:55:00 +0100 To: Paolo Agati Subject: Re: Floppy disks with DECStation 3100 From: mip@castle.edinburgh.ac.uk Date: Mon, 28 Jun 93 17:54:40 WET DST Message-Id: <9306281754.aa21721@castle.ed.ac.uk> Status: RO Hi, Ok - this comes from our computer help. I didn't write it so I'm sure if it's correct but it might help: -------------------- RX23 diskette device -------------------- This device seems to accept only 3 1/2" HD diskettes. Attempts to use DD or SD diskettes fail. Formatting ---------- A diskette may be formatted in two ways: - using the INIT command: $ INIT/DENSITY=DOUBLE DUAn: label The density parameter is confusing. The documentation (HELP INIT DEV/DENSITY) speaks about SINGLE and DOUBLE as accepted parameters for diskette drives (both for RX02 dual-density drives, DOUBLE for RX33 drives). However it does not seem to refer to the support media. If the initialization is attempted on DD diskettes, the reply is: $ INIT/DENSITY=SINGLE DUAn: label %INIT-F-FORMAT, invalid media format $ INIT/DENSITY=DOUBLE DUAn: label %INIT-F-DRVERR, fatal drive error - when the VAXstation is up but the system is not booted yet, the command TEST may be used to format; the session is as follows: >>> TEST 70 Explanation VSfmt_QUE_unitno (0-3)? SCSI number associated to the device (1 for DUA1, 2 for DUA2) VSfmt_QUE_RXmedtyp ( 1=RX33 ),( 2=RX23 )? choose the right device type VSfmt_QUE_RUsure ( DUA2 1/0 )? Answer 1 for going ahead, 0 to quit VSfmt_STS_FMTing ... Capacity -------- The diskette structure is: 80 cylinders, 2 tracks/cylinder, 18 sectors/track, 512 bytes/sector. This makes a total of 2880 blocks (where 1 sector=1 block), equivalent to 1.47 Mb ( 1440 x 1024 ). The directory may contain up to 720 files. In practice only 2855 are available, as there is some space devoted to the system files .SYS: BACKUP,BADBLK,BADLOG,BITMAT,CONTIN,CORIMG,INDEXF,VOLSET Copying files onto the diskette ------------------------------- The BACKUP or COPY commands are enough to write onto the diskette once it is mounted and a root directory is created: $ MOUNT DUAn: label FLOPPY $ CREATE/DIRECTORY FLOPPY:[name] $ COPY *.* FLOPPY:[name] Hope this helps! Cheers, Mark Parsons Edinburgh HEp Group / Aleph Collaboration, LEP, CERN --=ooOOoo=-- Parsons@edinburgh.ac.uk OR Parsons@cernvm.cern.ch =================================================================== From stewart.nichols@dir.texas.gov Mon Jun 28 19:46:20 1993 Received: from DIR.TEXAS.GOV by DIR.TEXAS.GOV (PMDF V4.2-11 #4446) id <01GZWU1TGW5CGW2AF9@DIR.TEXAS.GOV>; Mon, 28 Jun 1993 12:46:47 CDT Date: Mon, 28 Jun 1993 12:30:23 -0500 (CDT) From: stewart.nichols@dir.texas.gov Subject: Re: Floppy disks with DECStation 3100 In-Reply-To: Your message dated "Mon, 28 Jun 1993 14:23:32 +0000 (GMT)" To: agati@uts340.univ.trieste.it, info-vax@crvax.sri.com Cc: NICHOLS_SA@DIR.TEXAS.GOV Message-Id: <01GZWUOEIZ5GGW2AF9@DIR.TEXAS.GOV> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Status: RO Paolo Agati writes: >Hi there, >here at our laboratory we have a problem with our DECStation 3100: >the machine is equipped with one floppy drive but we haven't managed >to format any disk with it, altough we have read TFM. >Could someone please tell us how to format a floppy on that station? Simple. You take the diskette over to your IBM PC compatible, place it in the the high-density "A" drive, and type: format A: This will nicely perform the low-level formatting on the diskette, giving you a 1.44 megabyte format. You can then do an INIT on the diskette just the same as you would on any other VMS disk. If you are a glutton for punishment you can, from the 3100's boot prompt (the >>> stuff) do a low-level format with something along the lines of >>> TEST 76 (WARNING: this may not be the correct command. choosing the wrong parameters will low-level format your hard-drive.) I don't remember the exact parameters because I don't know anyone who does it that way. Who wants to go to the frigging boot prompt to format a diskette? The actual command should be in your manual. You probably just couldn't believe that this was really how it was done. I have heard that this would be fixed, so if anyone knows how it is done now (if different), please post it. *--------------------------------*-------------------------------------* * Stewart Nichols * * * Wide Area Network Specialist * When in Rome, do as the Romans do. * * Dept. of Info Resources, Texas * * * * When in DEC, do as the * * Work Phone: 512-463-7601 * DECadents do. * * stewart.nichols@dir.texas.gov * * *--------------------------------*-------------------------------------* ======================================================================== ========================================================================= Paolo Agati Universita' degli Studi di Trieste agati@uts340.univ.trieste.it DEEI - Laboratorio Voce e Musica