3B2/300 Hard Disks

[Kevin Lincoln Flynn]

Just not-so-idle curiosity, since I think I've got one dead 3B2/300 with a good
hard disk (dead system board) and two with dead VTOCs on their hard disks...

  Question 1: Is it really that complicated to add the disk drive from the 
              dead 3B2 to a live one as the second hard disk?  (c1d1s6) ?
              Or does one just connect those neat little sockets on the back
              of a /300 to the card edge connectors of the good drive, move
              that little drive-select jumper into slot two and fire the
              system up?
  Question 2: What can one do about a disk with a dead VTOC?  We tried the
              fmthard command and such (sysadm partitioning, full restore)
              and ALL the formatting commands seem to depend on a good VTOC!
              This doesn't make much sense to me!  Is the controller on the
              /300 we were using bad?  or is it really the case that all the
              formatters distributed with the /300s are highlevel that depend
              on the VTOC being intact?  and if THAT is true....
  Question 3: What kind of disk controller does a 3B2/300 use?  ST506 like
              we think?  And if we can find, say, a DOS machine with the 
              same kind of controller, can we do a low-level format there, 
              repartition on the 3B2 and expect it to work?  Or am I just
              grasping at straws?  [ :) ]

  Any help will be EXTREMELY appreciated.  Thanks a lot, in advance.
  
  - Flynn

PS.  Replies via Email will be preferred; I believe email to my reply-to
     address (flynn at anyguay.acm.rpi.edu {flynn at 128.113.10.205}) now works;
     the problems you may have had earlier should now be fixed.



 
Kevin Lincoln Flynn    flynn at anyguay.acm.rpi.edu, userfwvl at mts.rpi.edu
2151 12th Street       H (518) 273-6914  W (518) 447-8561
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...Argue for your limitations, and sure enough they're yours.