Need help formating disks under 4.3bsd!

[Yaser Doleh]

In article <.670112259 at braille.uwo.ca>, kirk at braille.uwo.ca (Kirk Reiser) writes:
|> 
|> I would like to know if anyone out there in UNIX wizard land might be
|> able to help me?  I have a Microvax II running 4.3bsd.  One of my
|> hard drives has developed a large number of bad sectors.  I have
|> read all the information I could find on line about the system and
|> things don't seem to be what they should be.  According to the boot
|> message the adaptor in question is an UDA50.  The disk is specified as
|> a rd53 and the special file is /dev/ra1?.
|> 
|> The man pages on format and the like tell me how to boot the system and 
|> get the formater running, of course it is wrong.  After a lot of f**king around
|> I managed to find a format program in a directory called /sys/stand/format.
|> I made a directory called /stand and cp'd format into that directory.
|> I then fiddled with the boot program and got format running only to be
|> told by format that hp and up were the only known controllers.  WELL!
|> thats the problem, the format program seems to be up to date with the
|> makefile but no uda, ra, or rd ...  If anyone has any ideas, I
|> would sure like to here about them.  The drive is in bad shape and I need to get
|> it reformatted soon.

You will need a special format program from DEC. If you have a 
diag tape that usually comes with VMS or ultrix then boot it and you
will find the format. I am not sure, but I beleive that
the format program write something special on the disk which is used
by the controller later.

After formating you can use disklabel to partition the disk if you
are running the version of bsd4.3 that supports disk labeling.

|> 
|> I am no expert when it comes to UNIX, 4.3bsd or Microvaxs, so there is a 
|> good chance I am overlooking something very basic.  If you can help me I 
|> would certainly appreciate it!

I am not an expert either, but I had to format an rd53 disk too.

|> 
|>   Kirk
|> Kirk Reiser				The Computer Braille Facility
|> email:   kirk at braille.uwo.ca		room H045 Health Sciences Addition
|> phone: (519) 661-3061			University of Western Ontario
|> 					London Ontario N6A 5C1
-- 
---------------------------------------------------
Yaser Doleh   <doleh at mcs.kent.edu>
Department Of Mathematics & Computer Science
Kent State University
Kent - OH 44242