On 04/09/98 16:50:02 you wrote:

Here's my theory as to the cause (translation: guess):

The netapp mirrors the OS on the header of all the disks.

At least half of the disks must have the same OS copy/version/checksum/magic-number in order for the netapp to boot correctly (guess #1)

Well, if true, this would have to be a new thing with respect to the OS version... it would just boot whatever OS it found "first". The "first" disk is usually the same every reboot, but circumstances (as well as simple chance) can change this. You're right about the magic-number stuff, but I think there is more than one magic-number to consider.

The "vol destroy" uses a hardware-quick-erase feature which blows away the whole disk, not just the data portion. This blows away the OS portion of the disk.

Viola! After a vol destroy on 22 of my 24 disks, I now have a valid OS on less than half the disks. Non-floppy boots fail until I get it up with a floppy, and run download (but no data is lost).

The only thing that doesn't make sense to me in this theory is that if the header is invalid, then the disk will just show up as such and have to be reinitialized. But there are various types of headers on the disks and they are looked at in different ways, so the matter is probably much more complicated. My guess is the vol destroy just isn't handling the header correctly, not that the software isn't getting downloaded to it. (The latter might also be true.)

Bruce