🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Aug12.145332.15296@menudo.uh.edu> cosc16to@menudo.uh.edu  
(Andy Hakim) writes:
> barry@chezmoto.ai.mit.edu (Barry Kort) writes:
> : 
> : Venix does an fsck upon boot.  This may be why your HD head is  
seeking?
> 
> This 2 minute head banging bit is prior to any venix msgs (right
> after digital logo).  I have had a chance to try another st-225 and 
> the st-4038 and they also exhibit the same problem... so it is probably
> the software.  The 30mg drive did not work btw (disk read msgs during  
install)
> maybe the heads/cylinders of the st-4038 are not the same as the RD-52.
> 

I missed the initial posting, but I think I know what's going on here.   
When VENIX boots, the disk driver attempts to determine what kind of hard  
disk is installed.   Unfortunately, the only way it can distinguish  
between some of the disk drives is to attempt to read from the end of the  
disk -- say, a track that exists only on the RD52 but not on the RD51.  If  
the read fails, VENIX will retry a number of times before giving up.  I  
think what you're seeing is the failed retries, and, as suggested above,  
it's probably due to a head/cylinder difference between your disk and one  
of the supported ones.

Paul Kleppner
Lotus