Need Help With System Recovery After HD Errors

Lots of web sites don't work with the SCO browser. It is too old.
You can use ftp from the console command line

ftp ftp.microlite.com
(user and password)
cd /demos/current/edgesco5
get either VOL.000.000 or edgesco5.elf 

use user anonymous and password your email address.
If you are licensed for version 2, you can restore /usr/lib/edge from your tape to get a licensed version. It may be easier to restore this directory to a separate location first, and also restore /etc/edge*
Don't forget to update the schedule to get an entry in crontab

Yeah, I needed to take more time with this, but I got a new license from Microlite for version 3 and I ftp'd the edgesco5.elf file over and installed it. Backup Edge did not find my tape drive, so I now figure that I need to install a driver for the SCSI adapter to which it is attached.

The adapter is Adaptec AHA 2940W/2940UW and I found a driver online that I can download, however it says that it is for the 7800 family manager set. I found my old floppy that says the same thing, and there are some commands written on it that appear to be what I should type in at the Boot: prompt, here is what the notes say:

ahslink pkg=alad325 replace=routine 21

Does that seem like something that would work? Let me know if I should try this before downloading the driver and trying to make a new floppy. Thanks.

---------- Post updated at 09:18 AM ---------- Previous update was at 08:41 AM ----------

I just now read that there maybe another way to install the driver now that OpenServer is already installed? Should I use the "installpkg" option instead? I could use some guidance as to how I add my Adaptec SCSI driver so I can access my tape drive. Thanks a bunch!

---------- Post updated at 11:00 AM ---------- Previous update was at 09:18 AM ----------

Well, given enough time I seem to have figured out several things on my own. The Adaptec adapter was already being recognized by SCO, and the tape drive was recognized by the server and gave me the SCSI LUN ID information I needed to perform "mkdev tape" and I have the tape drive operational now! I am going to insert my latest backup tape and get a listing of what is on it so I can decide what I need to restore. I am thinking that I want to restore all directories under / (root), because I have no current tech support for my legacy application, and I don't know how many directories it is using - I am sure it was several.

Are there any directories I should avoid overwriting so I don't affect the current "good" installation of 5.0.6? I am pretty sure I had also installed the supplement 5.0.6a update at some point - will that be restored with my backup or should I reinstall that from the CD first? Any guidance will be helpful. Thanks.

Do not restore /etc/conf. You will have to re-install RS506a and any other patches as well. These are important because they ensure that your system is Y2K compliant.

5.0.6a supplements were installed successfully. I am trying to find out exactly what directories are on my backup. I have ran a verify/list function from the edgemenu, and it appears there are no problems with my tape. I did not sit and watch every file name as it was being verified, thinking I would get to see a list afterward - but I can't find the list to check. I know there are the following: /u, /usr, /lost+found, /etc, and more. As they scroll through all of the listings are prefaced with a ./ - is that normal? When I get ready to restore and enter my list of directories, will I use the . before the /? Is it worth the time to hook up the old hard drive just long enough to get the directory names under the / directory? I feel like I'm almost there, I just don't want to do anything wrong with the restore to undo my work so far. Thanks!

There should be a copy of the file listing in /usr/lib/edge/lists/menu
You may have to also check /usr/lib/edge/lists/simple_job.
If you restored everything excep /etc/conf, then you should have everything that was on the old hard drive.
What may be different is that /u, for instance, might have been a file system on the old system, but is now just a directory in the root file system.

I did a full backup of the system after my reinstall, before doing the Restore from my tape. I had to clean the heads of my tape drive, luckily I still had a cleaning tape and it worked. I restored everything except /etc/conf and the job completed "with exceptions" - but I don't know what they were or if important.

The one problem is that /u is a File System, I know this for a fact, but I don't remember what type of File System. After the restore and reboot, it looks like it tried and failed to mount the /u filesystem - it just said "failed to mount". I know this is where most of the inner workings of my legacy application live, so can you tell me what steps to take in order to try and remount this /u file system?

Thanks - you have been VERY helpful and I appreciate it.

---------- Post updated at 04:19 PM ---------- Previous update was at 02:11 PM ----------

Been reading up a little, it looks like I need to run divvy to create the u division on the disk. Old system had root from 539648 - 10000025, and u from 10000026 - 38973679 (40 GB hard drive)

Current system shows root from 539648 -134070446 (140 GB hard drive) I think divvy will let me create the u division and I can probably figure a size. If this is the correct action, should I first delete everything I "restored" to the /u directory? Then would I create and mount the file system, and do a new restore of the /u on the backup tape?

Let me know if I am on the right track, or what else to do. Thanks again.

The boot file system is EAFS, the root and any other (/u) file systems default to HTFS.
You cannot re-size an HTFS partition without losing the data that is on it. So you will not be able to add the /u file system without doing a full backup and standalone restore.
From an operational point of view, it will make no difference if /u is a file system, or simply another directory in the root file system.
If you must, do a full backup, boot from the Edge recovery media, re-size the partitions, and do full restore.

---------- Post updated at 08:02 PM ---------- Previous update was at 07:20 PM ----------

I now what happened. When you restored the old data, you restored /etc/default/filesys, which has the file system configuration. Unfortunately the one that has been restored contains info on /u but that file system no longer exists.
Just use a text editor and remove the references to /u.

My only concern is functionality, and since I was under the false impression that I needed the separate file system, I didn't even check it yesterday. Now that I have, it is working GREAT!! All of the operations that we needed from our old system is basically the ability to look at, print and/or email the historical information that we have going back about 20 to 25 years. All of that is operational and I will be a hero now - thanks for all your help with this.

There are just a couple of "cleanup" issues - SCO keeps complaining that I have software that is not registered - I have entered the license numbers I have, but I remember there was a website you had to go on and get a Registration Key. Is there still a place to do that?

Also, in my tinkering around I was able to get SCO installed on a VM, using VM Workstation version 12.5 in a Windows 7 Pro-64 computer. I chose the VM Workstation 8.x compatibility model for my VM, an IDE hard drive at 0:0 and an IDE CD Rom at 1:0 using the physical drive of the computer. Using the defbootstr command at installation it went like a champ. I even installed the keyboard mouse and the graphic screen/mouse is working. The only problem I have is I can't find instructions about how to install the network card driver. I selected "bridge mode" when I created the VM, and SCO did not recognize my NIC at installation, it is a Realtek PCIe GBE Family NIC on the mother board. I believe it is compatible with 5.0.6a, and I think I found the driver, but I have no clue how to get it installed. My only option is from a CD (I think) and I don't know how to do that. The Software Manager does not recognize what I downloaded and burned to the CD as "software" and I am clueless - could you advise me? I can't find any instructions online. I would like to have this VM as a "backup" plan, I would not use it unless the physical server goes down again. Thanks again for all your help.

I created a new thread for the VM comments.

Posting to new thread.