AXPVMS$PCSI_INSTALL_MIN.COM not working on V8.3 Alpha

[Volker Halle]

Brad,

so my analysis was correct. LBN 00053840 is the contents of [SYSE]SYSEXE.DIR - SYSBOOT.EXE will not be there.

APB should continue to look at the contents of SYSE.DIR (read earlier and to be found at VA 200E4200) and look for the FID of [SYSE]SYSCOMMON.DIR - then read the file header of that file and it's contents and look for SYSEXE.DIR ...

You can use DUMP/BL=(COUNT=1,START=%X)/FILE minsys: to dump the contents of those LBNs. /FILE will format them as a file header, if they are a file header. Use DUMP/DIR to dump the LBNs which are directories.

Volker.

[Bradford Hamilton]

OK Folks,

I re-init'ed the disk as an ODS-2 disk, re-booted, and...

the SA procedure boots fine.

I went to ODS-5 on all my disks (including system disk) in the V7.3-2 time-frame. I just naturally assumed (ha!) that I could create an SA boot disk as ODS-5, as well.

Bug or feature? :-)

[EdgarZamora]

Brad,

I'm glad you solved your problem. I have an ODS-5 disk though (initialized under 8.3) that works. I just booted it this morning to test again.

[Bradford Hamilton]

Hi Edgar,

Well, I "solved my problem", but my implicit hypothesis (that the problem arose from ODS-5 vs. ODS-2) has apparently been disproven, based on your experience.

While I'm satisfied that I now have a method for ensuring a "usable" SA environment, I'm troubled by the (apparent) lack of a reproducible "cause"; and I'm also unsure that an ODS-2 environment can properly back up (and restore?) my ODS-5 disks. Perhaps my fears are unfounded, but it would be nice to have more "certainty" around this problem.

[Volker Halle]

Brad,

as a simple test for reproducability of this problem, please just INIT/STRUC=5 the disk and try again...

Volker.

[Volker Halle]

Brad,

running BACKUP from an ODS-2 minimum system disk does in no way limit it's ability to save and restore ODS-5 disks.

Volker.

[Volker Halle]

Brad,

on your ODS-5 disk, were there are any of the files used during bootstrap with lowercase file names ?

I've just tested V8.3 AXPVMS$PCSI_INSTALL_MIN.COM on a freshly initialized ODS-5 disk and it boots o.k.

Volker.

[Bradford Hamilton]

Hi Volker,

I decided to go for a slightly different approach, rather than repeat the method that was not working.

In conjunction with using ODS-5 disks, my LOGIN.COM procedure sets the process parsing style as EXTENDED (SET PROCESS/PARSE=EXTENDED). After all, why wouldn't I do that? :-)

This time, I changed the parse style to TRADITIONAL, re-inited the disk as ODS-5, installed the minimal system environment and...

it works.

Can anyone else verify my new hypothesis? I'm going out to do some errands this afternoon, and won't be on my system for a while.

[Volker Halle]

Brad,

then THAT would be the bug in AXPVMS$PCSI_INSTALL_MIN.COM: NOT making sure that the parse style is set to TRADITIONAL !!!

A 'typical' VMS system manager would not set his process to extended parse style when doing system management work - I don't and that's probably the reason that my INIT/STRUC=5 and AXPVMS$PCSI_INSTALL_MIN and boot just worked ;-)

After setting parse-style to extended, I get this (on the ODS-5 minsys disk):

PFRWIW-CHARON-AXP $ dir dkb200:

Directory DKB200:

...
syscommon.dir;1 2 10-AUG-2007 19:51:59.81
...

And - guess what - it doesn't boot !

We would have found this problem also in the next systematic troubleshooting step: carefully (!) looking at the contents of the directory blocks with DUMP.

If you can, please make sure that this bug in AXPVMS$PCSI_INSTALL_MIN.COM gets reported to HP.

Volker.

[Bradford Hamilton]

Hi Volker,

Thanks for the confirmation.

Of course, in the real world :-)
many folks are both system manglers and application developers. The trick is to learn to separate the two tasks.

In the meantime, I've taken the
$set process/parse=extended command out of login.com, until the bug can be reported/fixed.