• Please review our updated Terms and Rules here

RQDX1/2/3 latest firmaware and supported drives

bigral

Experienced Member
Joined
Sep 17, 2013
Messages
64
Hello,

I am trying to format st225 and st251 connected to RQDX3 through M9058 but I'm getting error:

controller has reported a fatal error in the format program
status: rct write error

what I should check to get an idea about the cause of this error?

thanks,

Andrey

p.s. also I have couple of rqdx1(2?) cards, what drives they would support provided latest firmware is installed?
 
Andrey,

Are you letting the controller determine the drive type, or are you specifying the drive type? By now you must know that ST225 is RD31 and ST251 is RD32. Go ahead and specify explicitly. Also, are you sure that these drives are fine? Even these drives are starting to show signs of weakness. Do they spin up fine or are the heads stuck?

What are the rom revisions on the RQDX3? Also confirm you are using ZRQCH0 (revision H0 of ZRQC). Lastly, check to make sure that M9058 has all the right jumpers in the right spots and that you have the cables landed in the right spots. M9058 is extremely versatile.

Lou
 
Hi Andrey,

I've been playing around with ST225 and ST251 drives recently on both RQDX2 and RQDX3 controller. I've had no trouble formatting them with ZRQCH0.

I have a page with some info about hooking up floppy drives and MFM hard drives on RQDX controllers -> http://www.avitech.com.au/pdp-11-03/rqdx-wiring.html.

Scroll down to the section headed "Formatting an MFM Hard Drive", about half way down the page. It shows the dialog you'd normally get in a disk-formatting operation. Might help. If you still have problems, I'd be checking cables and jumpers. Are you starting with a known good drive? One minor thing to check is the jumpers on the drive itself, and that it has a terminating resistor pack fitted.

Good luck.
 
for now, I have tried to use an rqdx controller (two of them and couple of M9058 boards) both give same result:

ONLINE FAILED
* DISK 0 - UNIT OFFLINE
* SUB_CODE: UNIT UNKNOWN OR ONLINE TO ANOTHER CONTROLLER
* COMMAND: ONLINE
TIME: 10:59 HOURS

UNIT 0 DROPPED - FAILED TO COME ONLINE

UNT DSK # OF # BYTES # OF # BYTES --HARD ERRORS-- --SOFT ERRORS--
# # TYPE READS READ WRITES WRITTEN SEK DAT DRV HST SEK DAT DRV HST
--- --- ---- ----- --------- ------ --------- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
0 0 @@00 0000 0,000,000 0000 0,000,000 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0
. . CNTR . ......... . ......... . . 0 . . . 0 .

firmware: spa8543 ( 172e5/173e5 ) ( 2xi27128 )
 
Are you letting the controller determine the drive type, or are you specifying the drive type? By now you must know that ST225 is RD31 and ST251 is RD32. Go ahead and specify explicitly. Also, are you sure that these drives are fine? Even these drives are starting to show signs of weakness. Do they spin up fine or are the heads stuck?
What are the rom revisions on the RQDX3? Also confirm you are using ZRQCH0 (revision H0 of ZRQC). Lastly, check to make sure that M9058 has all the right jumpers in the right spots and that you have the cables landed in the right spots. M9058 is extremely versatile.

st251 is checked on wd ibm at controller and works ok. yes i'm using ZRQCH0 and i'm setting explicitly rd32
what configuration can I do to M9058? seems there is no any, J9 connector is not connected at all
 
Did you remember to set the drive select jumper on the drive itself to unit 3 (or 4 for the 2nd drive) for use with the RQDX3?
 
Did you remember to set the drive select jumper on the drive itself to unit 3 (or 4 for the 2nd drive) for use with the RQDX3?

ok, I didn't know that drive itself should be set to UNIT#1 (default is UNIT#0). Now rqdx3 is successfully formatted st251 hdd.

Is there way to upgrade rqdx1/2 to support st225/251? Is there any other firmware than original? I have an st506 drive clone 5mb, named SM5300, is there chance to use it also?
 
Back
Top