🚀 go-pugleaf

Since I cant seem to get rid of my non-working VAX 730, Im going to
do the next best thing... try to get it working. Hopefully someone
here can help me find what may be the problem.

Normally, when I power the beast on, I would give power to the R80
drive, wait for a minute or two too let the motor speed stabilize.
The I would power on the VAX. At that point, normally, the drive
kicks in with a nice healthy _WHUMP_ and goes ready after a few
seconds (and sometimes blows fuses:-)

What happens now is the drive spins, but never goes ready. I turn on
the VAX, and it goes thru loading the microcode off the TU58 tape, and
at the point where it wants to load VMS, since the drive isnt ready, 
it just kinda heaves up all over the place.

This is kind of a bummer, since Ive got this big box and now it doesnt
work... I seem to think its a cable problem, but I cant find any 
obvious defects in the cable. And the way the thing is, it seems next
to impossible to pull out the cable (actually, two or more?) to
try to test continuity.

Anyone know offhand what I might look at next? Is there a diagnostic
tape I can boot, or similar? Ive got a standalone backup built on an
RL02 pack, but I havent yet tried to boot that, to see if maybe the
RB730 is at fault. (I hope not!)

Please reply via mail, as I dont recive this newsgroup.

Thanx

-- 
Billy D'Augustine                | "Wish I had some goddamned milk!
...rutgers!bobsbox!thoth!azog    | "Cheerieos just aint the same!"
azog@thoth.rent.com              | - Stormtroopers of Death (SOD)