Re: "Invalid Media Format" error

From: Joe H. Gallagher (dtrwiz_at_ix.netcom.com)
Date: 06/30/04 

Date: Tue, 29 Jun 2004 23:43:47 GMT

John F wrote:
>
> Got several Seagate ST15150N's (aka RZ29B's) that don't seem
> to want to mount/foreign or initialize, giving "Invalid Media
> Format" for both commands, regardless of switches/attributes
> I try to tack on. The disks are recognized okay using sh dev,
> both before and after boot, and scsi chain tests okay, etc.
> This is all on a DECstation 3000 600 running Alpha VMS 7.3
> booted off an RZ28 on the same chain.
> The only possible clue I noticed is that some ST15150N's
> (from an older batch) that do mount okay report 4.29GB from
> >>> sh dev, whereas these report 4.28GB.
> Google search turned up suggestions like
> init/over=(own,acc,exp), but that gives an error like
> "attribute not appropriate for device type" (override only
> applies to tapes). A few other google suggestions also didn't
> work. Any way to init these disks? I'm happy to clobber any
> data on them. Thanks,
> --
> John Forkosh ( mailto: j@f.com where j=john and f=forkosh )

Have you considered the possibility that the disk may not be
formatted at 512 bytes per block. I recently got a batch of
ST15150N disks from eBay which were formatted at 520 bytes
per block. They gave fatal parity errors on INIT and MOUNT
on a microVAX 3100/90 until low level formatted (at 512).

Joe

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