I have a known good external SCSI HD running SCO UNIX OpenServer 5.0.7. I decided that I wanted to be able to run this drive on another computer, so I bought the same SCSI card as before (LSI) and then attempted to boot on the other system. The bootup process hung with the error F painit. I've never seen this before--does anyone know what this means? I know that the LSI card is good because I've used it to boot to Windows Server--and this OS installed the driver and sees the card perfectly. The two computers both use Gigabyte motherboards, but they're not the same model. Still, I don't think that should make a difference.
What is the manufacturing date of the replacement board?
Boards manufactured since mid 2012 (designed for Windows 8) can cause issues.
You may be able to determine if the mb is usable by:
Boot the motherboard from an SCO 5.0.7 cd, (with or without a hard disk), and see how far you can get with the installation.
The LSI card was manufactured on or before 2012. It works fine in my original system, as does the hard drive. The motherboard for the original system is GA-X58A-UD7. The motherboard for the alternate system is GA-EP45-UD3P. The boot process gets to step F, which is for I/O, I think, and it hangs.
Can you check the CMOS and ensure that the sata controller is set to ide and not ahci, and if there is the option also set it to compatible mode.
Yes, the SATA controller is set to IDE, not AHCI. This is a dual boot system; the SATA drive is for Windows Server; the SCSI drive is for SCO UNIX OpenServer. I checked the CPU: it's an Intel Core 2 Duo E8600 running at 3.33 GHz; it's compatible with SCO. I don't think there's anything else I can change in the BIOS. (Besides, my original system is also dual boot--Windows 7 Pro and SCO, and here I have SATA set to AHCI--SCO boots regardless.)
---------- Post updated at 09:57 PM ---------- Previous update was at 09:40 PM ----------
There is one difference though: the original computer has an Intel Pro/100 ethernet card, whereas the alternate computer has a RealTek Gigabit ethernet card. Could this be the source of the hangup? I would think that SCO would note the issue but then continue with the boot...
Can you post a screen shot of the error message? I will look at it in the morning.
I've attached a jpg of the screen. I've also ordered a new Intel Pro/100+ network card to put into the alternate computer--the Realtek LAN card is really the only I/O device which is different from the original computer. I'll post again when I receive and install the new LAN card--I hope that will solve the problem.
Is the Realtek nic a card, or is it a chip. If you remove it, or disable it, the system should boot even if the Intel card is not there. It will take a long time though as sendmail, apache and other tcp processes take 120 seconds each to time out.
You may want to get one of these instead of an actual Intel card.
You may also find it necessary to delete the network card configuration and add it again for the card to work.
From eBay, the Intel Pro/100+ is only $13.75, so it's no big deal. The Realtek LAN ports (2) are chips, not a card. I disabled them in BIOS--but I still got the same F painit message on boot. So let's wait for the Pro/100+....
The saga continues. The Intel Pro/100+ card came in and I installed it in the alternate system. I booted to the Windows Server 2003 drive--and the OS saw the card and installed the driver perfectly--thus I know the card is fine. Then I shutdown Windows Server 2003 and booted to the SCO UNIX OpenServer drive--and again it stopped at step F of the boot. I do have an LPT3 card in the original computer and one in the alternate computer. However, they're not the same brand, so I therefore decided to buy another LPT3 card from the manufacturer, Axxon, which is in the original system--and which I definitely know works with SCO. I'll post back when I get the new LPT3 card installed (of course taking out the other one). My goal here is to have two redundant systems.
Can you put the disk back in the original system, and boot, then look at the last 60 lines of /usr/adm/messages. This file contains the same information as displayed on the screen in the boot process.
You should then be able to tell which piece of hardware is causing the problem.
The new Axxon LPT3 card came in today, and I immediately installed it in the alternate system--and SCO OpenServer came right up! So now I have total redundancy--this took three cards: LSI Dual SCSI, Intel Pro/100+, and Axxon LPT3. This is quite a relief!
I would suggest that you do one more thing since it appears that you will not be able to boot the system if the Axxon card fails.
Remove the driver, re-link the kernel and save it in /stand as unix.no_axxon, then re-install the driver.
If the card fails, or has to be removed, you can still get the system started by entering unix.no_axxon at the Boot: prompt.
Not a bad idea, but I now have two Axxon cards, so it's rather unlikely that both would fail.