[JeffG]

Hello all - my first post on this forum! I'm normally a Windows admin but have been running some ancient RS's to keep a legacy system running for archival purposes. I know just enough about Unix/Linux/AIX to be dangerous.

After dealing with some hardware failures on an RS/6000 540, I was hoping to upgrade to something smaller, and a B50 rackmount box seemed to be perfect. I found one locally but having some problems loading AIX 4.3.2 on it (its what I had laying around). Problem is, after it starts to boot from CD I get a 0c41 error, which I understand is "Could not determine the boot type or device."

Could this be due to a cdrom firmware issue? My problem is this server has blank hard drives so I'm not sure now to install AIX otherwise to upgrade the firmware. Would say, AIX 4.1 be able to boot if its the firmware? I have another (monstrous) RS (J30) thats barely hanging in there that I may be able to use to upgrade it, but pulling it out of the closet will be an ordeal.

Any ideas? I have other scsi cdroms around but they're all 50 pin ones.

[ross.mather]

All the kit you are talking about is no longer supported. If it doesn't work out of the box then you may well be fighting a losing battle.

As a windows admin would you maintain Windows for Workgrups 3.11 now? Because thats the equivalent age of AIX kit.

[JeffG]

I know all this is antique! The fact is this system only needs to support 1-2 users, and is not internet-connected or anything like that. As long as the data is accessible from time to time on 1 or 2 terminals thats all I need. I'm not working with IBM support on it; I'm literally trying to set this up so I can use a smaller rack server to provide this antique system a newer home. Many people report using this version of AIX successfully on a B50, and 4.3.2 is all I have, so that may be all we're licensed for. If I can get a newer version cheap somewhere I'm willing to try one, but simliar boot-from-cd issues have been reported with 5.2 on the B50.

My other option is to reload on an RS/6000 560 I believe, which is a 50mhz machine. It had a hard drive failure, so could I use non-ibm hard drives to bring it back to life again?

The B50 is simply an experiment - I'm hoping I can install this software on it and run it until the day they finally let it go. If not, I'll pull the behemonth back out and try that again.

Jeff

[3geofftech]

Hi,
I have not come across any need to worry about firmware on the cds - How far along the boot do you get ?
Are you targeting the cd drive, or booting with '5' or 'F5' at the banner to try for a default service boot ?
You might want to try a diagnostic CD (download the 5.1 version from here) and see if a) it boots and b) the system checks out.

https://www14.software.ibm.com/webap...iags/home.html

Geoff

[JeffG]

Thanks for the link - I'm going to try getting the diag cd and latest system firmware to see if they do anything.

Basically it does boot from CD..I get the Aix boot prompt which ends with "closing stdin/stdout". On the readout on the server it then either goes one of two ways - 99% of the time it ends on 0c41, which means "Cannot determine boot type or device", or it stops with "0512" which means "restoring device configuration files from media". When it stops on 512, I can hear the cdrom trying to read but then it clicks and keeps trying. I let it go and it never moved from that when it did that.

I'm using a burned copy of aix which I'm sure isn't helping, but the older servers had no problem using these disks. I have the originals somewhere I just can't find them right now.

Another thing too - this server has (2) 9-gig hard drives in it, which the firmware recognizes, but it doesn't give me them as an option to select as a boot device. I'm almost wondering if thats part of 0c41 error, hence why I'm going to try the diag cd next.

Lastly - I did try using the firmware screens to boot, by using "select install device". Thats where I think I'm getting the 512 errors. It recognizes the cd and aix, but stops.

Thanks for your help so far!

Jeff

[JeffG]

Got it working!! I somehow managed to find my original disks, and they booted right up. I also upgraded the system firmware while I was at it - it was only 1-2 versions off.

Incidentally though, I could not get the diagnostics cd to work properly. It booted and loaded fine, but when I went to run a test, no matter what key I hit it either selected or de-selected that item, even pressing F7 to commit (and continue) didn't work. Any ideas on that?

[3geofftech]

Hmm , maybe your emulator / term type didnt have F7 - try escape and 7. ??

We are also suspicious that some of these older IBM CD drives don't like burned cd media - hence probably why the original worked - bur hey ho - well done !!

[JeffG]

I'll try the escape-7 trick next time I fire it up. Still wanted to figure that out. The terimnal is an IBM 3151 running Wyse60 emulation, and I did select that.

Thanks!