boot virtual disk vms83.iso problem

[scruty]

hello,
finally I got to the console prompt with es40 emu under w2k. I copied the ovms hobbyist kit with binary distribution of vms 8.3 to a file called vms83.iso using Nero virtual image copy. (then I set cdrom to false in cfg file as proposed in another post to get 512 byte blocks instead of 2048 byte blocks). when I do a

b dqa1

which is the name displayed for vms83.iso file in

show dev d

it results in an error (illegal boot block).

how to correctly create a bootable copy of a vms cd, please?
thank you!

[scruty]

just achieved to make a correct iso capture of the bin distri vms 8.3 CD (using undisker under w2k) and now es40 emu is booting...

[scruty]

Get different, seemingly non-reproducable errors, during installation procedure (I selected only tcp/ip from the installation options):

1. while

Performing product kit validation:

pcsi-e-readerror
dqb0:[kits.tdc-alpha_022-kit]hp-axpvms-tdc-rt-v020-107-1.pcsi.compressed;1
-DCX-W-TRUNC, data truncated
%pcsi-e-s_opfail, operation failed

2. when I tried again, I got over the validation but get an access violation, the top of the procedure trace displaying:

spiu-prod-docu-vms spiu_decompress-record

looks like a variable initialization error in the emulator most probably in the read code of this virtual disk (from es40.cfg) which I booted the distri kit from:

disk1.0 = file
    {
      file =          "img\vms83_.iso";
      read_only     = true;
      cdrom         = false;

(The distri CD used, installed successfully on a real alpha workstation. so I doubt that I've got a cd image capture error, give that undisker didn't report any copy error.)

any ideas what might be wrong?

p.s.: I tried to use the physical distri CD in the PC's IDE cd-r/rw drive (\\.\cdrom0 in es40.cfg), but this triggers the device "geometry" error. so I removed it from the cfg)

[scruty_]

seems a restart of the emu is needed after it autocreated the initial disk image. at least this brought me further in the installation process, i.e., I got to at least 80% of the installation progress (couldn't see the exact progress marker since it had scrolled off the alpha console window) when the installation procedure terminated with access violation.

I restarted the emu and booted tried to boot dqa0 which worked (a lot of opcom messages for bootupgrade).

vms did some autonegotiations with ewa0 (network adapter) - by the way, right at the start of the emu, a puTTY serial port 0 window was opened, - and then autogen started and is still running (getdata, genparams, concerning vmsimages.dat, I don't know why it displays ´You may wish to purge this sile.´ - yes, it's "sile" instead of "file". for params.dat, 4 lines above, it displayed "file". maybe it got too late today. ... still waiting for autogen to finish...

[scruty_]

magic is alive ;) sile is autocorrected to file when text scrolls up.

automatic shutdown after autogen was ok and now reboot is in progress.

[scruty_]

finally, the PAKs are entered. login via putty/telnet works fine.

funnily, although I can boot from dqb0 aka vms83_.iso CD as captured with undisker which is declared in es40.cfg as

    disk1.0 = file
    {
      file =          "img\vms83_.iso";
      read_only     = true;
      cdrom         = false;
    }
I can't mount this device.

$ sh dev d

Device                  Device           Error    Volume         Free  Trans Mnt

Name                   Status           Count     Label        Blocks Count Cnt

DQA0:                   Mounted              0  EA83            333632   213   1

DQA1:                   Offline              1
DVA0:                   Offline              0
DQB0:                   Online               0
DQB1:                   Online               0

$
$ mou dqb0/over=id

%MOUNT-F-DRVERR, fatal drive error

$ sh dev/fu dqb_0  0

Disk DQB0:, device type vms83_.iso, is online, file-oriented device, shareable,
    available to cluster, error logging is enabled.

    Error count                    0    Operations completed                 17
    Owner process                 ""    Owner UIC                      [SYSTEM]
    Owner process ID        00000000    Dev Prot            S:RWPL,O:RWPL,G:R,W
    Reference count                0    Default buffer size                 512
    Total blocks             1434200    Sectors per track                    20
    Total cylinders             7171    Tracks per cylinder                  10

[scruty_]

all above was run under 018. now trying cvs 20080503_1030.

[scruty_]

es40.cfg:

This needed to boot this CD image:

disk1.0 = file
{
file = "img\vms83_.iso";
read_only = true;
cdrom = false;
}

and this is needed if you want to mount the CD image, once you booted a disk image:

disk1.0 = file
{
file = "img\vms83_.iso";
read_only = true;
cdrom = true
}

with latest snapshot build, I can mount the CD image.
but when I set the default to the tcpip installation directory and did

$product install *

es40 crashed and closed all windows. :-(

So before doing more testing, I'll wait for the next version of es40. ... by the way, what is the status of 019, please? keep up the good work! thank you!