>>>>>> So, from what I can see, the drive should spin up correctly, but for >>>>>> some reason it goes into fault mode. I am right in thinking that upon >>>>>> load, the heads should continue moving forward until the first track is >>>>>> found, right? I should not have to perform a seek manually from the PDP? >>>>>> If this is not the case, perhaps there is something else wrong. >>>>> I’m not an RL02 hardware expert at all, just a daily user back in the >>>>> day. I’m reading this assuming that at all times the drive is >>>>> correctly hooked up to an RLV12 in a running PDP with the correct >>>>> cable and termination present on the drive? If it isn’t you’ll get a >>>>> fault condition instead of ready after spin up. >>>>> >>>>> A >>>> No worries, your input has been valuable, so thank you. >>>> >>>> For anyone else who might have an idea: >>> ON fault the heads are retracted and will not load till cleared. >>> Least mine behaves that way. >>> >>> Most common problems are wrong drive address, cable issues, no terminator. >>> Others include head lock not removed or the auto unlock style of >>> headlock has >>> the tab broken. >>> >>>> It seems to be hooked up correctly. When it is in the weird flashing >>>> ready state, the boot loader says "Read error" or "Device error" >>>> randomly. The heads oscillate back and forth very slightly as if it is >>>> trying to align itself better on the first track, which doesn't exist >>>> because it hasn't moved far enough into the pack. >>> IF in fault its resetting to retracted on every try. >>> If not something else is wrong. >>> >>>> I'm beginning to think the heads are bad which will be far too expensive >>>> so I may end up giving up. >>> Heads are not that expensive... However you could have a wrong pack >>> or one that has been erased and has no servo tracks. You must start with >>> a known good pack and cleaned heads. >>> >>> >>> Allison >> Well, I replaced the DOWN head and adjusted the amplitude on the r/w >> board. The drive now stays in READY without the FAULT lamp coming on, so >> this is promising. The heads load onto the first track. >> >> Without any r/w operations, should the READY light flash? Mine is >> flashing a little but not too rapidly. I am guessing this is while it >> tries to keep the heads positioned over the track. > Yes, normal read/write/seek activity causes that. > >> When I try to boot using the MXV11-BF boot roms, it says: >> > MXV-11 boot is not very chatty or informative. > >> ]] ?BOOTROM-F- DL 0 read error >> >> The alignment between the two heads looks okay also. >> >> Any ideas, anyone? > > Is the OS on it? IF RT-11 is it configured to boot from DL-nn? > IF you have OS on floppy can your do a dir of the devices it knows of? >
This occurred to me just after I last replied. Silly me. Ended up booting into 2.11BSD to see if I could run disklabel on it. No such luck. I'll try RT-11 later this week. If that doesn't work I'll boot into XXDP over TU58 and give that ago. Thanks very much for your help, Allison, and others. Best, Aaron.