Re: Itanium: EFI... no fs0: device

From: JF Mezei (jfmezei.spamnot_at_teksavvy.com)
Date: 09/01/04 

Date: Tue, 31 Aug 2004 21:26:38 -0400

VAXman-, @SendSpamHere.ORG wrote:
> I still don't understand the FAT partition stuff. Why assume that the
> VMS space has any understanding of the Willyworld. The VMSers sure as
> hell doesn't.

The FAT stuff is simple, based on Hoff's explanations here some time ago.

Think of IA64 as a DOS machine. Its rudimentary console program looks at the
boot block which point to "some disk drive", and then locates and executes
COMMAND.COM based on a FAT table at the start of that disk drive. This then
gives it a more complete console program that allows the more elaborate
booting to proceed.

In VMS terms, the "some disk drive" happens to be contained in one RMS file as
a container file. To VMS, the contents of the file are jibberish. But the
equivalemt of COMMAND.COM hidden somewhere inside that container file provides
IA64 with the equivalent of SRM which allows IA64 to be knowedgeable enough to
look into the OSD-2/5 drive to find the SYSLOA*.EXE files and begin the VMS
booting process.

So, when you populate the system drive, the boot block must then be updated to
point to the location of that container file so that IA64's primitive ROM can
look at it and find some FAT disk drive.

And from what Hoff has explained, you can have different flavours of that
container file, containing different versions of "command.com" (each version
stored as a separate RMS file). So if you need diagnostics, you point the boot
block to a different RMS file and this WAY IA64 happens to load a totally
diffeent console program.

I am not sure how the IA64 VMS distribution is arranged.

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