Moving hardware to a new server

Hi,

I am hoping to get some advice on the following scenario;
We have an old unnamed server running SCO Open Server 5 on a Pentium
Pro motherboard.
This motherboard has now failed, can we move all hardware eg hard
drives, Raid array, LAN card, video card and Stallion card to a
completely new server?
It's been a few years since I had to support SCO, but never really got
in to this mess before. There is a certain programe installed and
parameters set which of course nobody knows anything about, go figure.
Asked what the DR was and they said this is is it, in other words I am
flying blind, and hence would not like to reinstall or reconfigure the
system if at all possible.
Any further questions or answrs needed please let me know, thanks for
your time.

JavaBean.

[email]javabean04@gmail.com[/email] wrote:
[color=blue]
> We have an old unnamed server running SCO Open Server 5 on a Pentium
> Pro motherboard.
> This motherboard has now failed, can we move all hardware eg hard
> drives, Raid array, LAN card, video card and Stallion card to a
> completely new server?[/color]

Your unamed version of SCO will range from very successful to impossible.
Your highest "chance" of this working will be to use a Pentium3 motherboard.

If you googled this newsgroup you would find hundreds of messages related to the
extreme difficulty in accomplishing what you want to do.

Good Luck!

[email]javabean04@gmail.com[/email] wrote:[color=blue]
>
> Hi,
>
> I am hoping to get some advice on the following scenario;
> We have an old unnamed server running SCO Open Server 5 on a Pentium
> Pro motherboard.
> This motherboard has now failed, can we move all hardware eg hard
> drives, Raid array, LAN card, video card and Stallion card to a
> completely new server?
> It's been a few years since I had to support SCO, but never really got
> in to this mess before. There is a certain programe installed and
> parameters set which of course nobody knows anything about, go figure.
> Asked what the DR was and they said this is is it, in other words I am
> flying blind, and hence would not like to reinstall or reconfigure the
> system if at all possible.
> Any further questions or answrs needed please let me know, thanks for
> your time.
>
> JavaBean.[/color]

Since the system is down, you can't run uname -X to obtain
information about the SCO version you are running. If you have
an emergency boot floppy set, boot it on any pc to try to view
the SCO release that it announces and post that information
to the NG.

My recommendation is to find someone local who can supply you with
a bare-bones system: system board, memory, CPU, and case assembled
and tested. Then you need only move your controller cards and hard
drives to the new case.

You have not said how many if any of the controller cards are ISA.

Trying to find system boards with ISA slots is problematical today.

Not knowing anything else about your present equipment, I would
suggest a SuperMicro PT3DL3 system board. This is a PIII board
that will support 1.4GHz PIII processor and has one ISA slot.

Openserver 5.0.0 to 5.0.5 will run on PIII and should not be
installed on anything faster than 1.4GHz PIII.

The PT3DL3 has on-board Adaptec SCSI controller that you can
use for the tape backup and SCSI CD-ROM(?) The onboard SCSI
requires the ad160 driver which works with SCO 5.0.5 and up.

If your unnamed Openserver 5 is prior to 5.0.5 then I would
use the PT3DLE without onboard SCSI.

Normally, I avoid using the RAID controller to support a
SCSI backup tape so the systems I have built have always
had the PT3DL3 system board.

Even if you move the NIC controller from the old system
to the new system, it will likely not work without running
netconfig and modifying the hardware configuration since the
PCI bus, device, and function number assigned to the NIC in the new
system board will be different from the old system.
(run hw on the new system when it is running and check to see
what information it returns for the NIC.)

The RAID controller will likely not be a problem. Just be sure
to use your CMOS setup to force all components to their own
IRQ. Don't share the IRQ between RAID controller with any
other device. If you don't have IDE CD, you can disable
onboard IDE controller and have access to IRQ 15 and 14.

From my system:

+---------------- Network Driver Configuration ----------------+
| ||
|Enter the configuration of 3Com EtherLink 10/100 PCI (3C905B):||
| ||
| PCI Bus: | 0____________________|v ||
| Device: | 10___________________|v ||
|Function: | 0____________________|v ||

hw:

Index: 7
DeviceNum: 10
Function: 0
Bus: 0
VendorId: 3Com Corporation
DeviceId: 0x9055
RevId: 0x24
Command: 0x0017 Memory Enabled, I/O Enabled
Status: 0x0210
ClassCode: 0x020000 Ethernet controller
CacheLineSize: 8 32 bit words
HeaderType: 0x00 Single-function, Standard encoding
BaseAddr[0]: I/O 0xb800
BaseAddr[1]: Memory 0xe0000000, 32 bit space
SubsysVendorID: 3Com Corporation
SubsystemID: 0x9055
InterruptLine: IRQ-10
InterruptPin: INTA
Min_Gnt: 0x0a
Max_Lat: 0x0a


Good luck.


--

Steve Fabac
S.M. Fabac & Associates
816/765-1670

[email]javabean04@gmail.com[/email] wrote:[color=blue]
> Hi,
>
> I am hoping to get some advice on the following scenario;
> We have an old unnamed server running SCO Open Server 5 on a Pentium
> Pro motherboard.
> This motherboard has now failed, can we move all hardware eg hard
> drives, Raid array, LAN card, video card and Stallion card to a
> completely new server?
> It's been a few years since I had to support SCO, but never really got
> in to this mess before. There is a certain programe installed and
> parameters set which of course nobody knows anything about, go figure.
> Asked what the DR was and they said this is is it, in other words I am
> flying blind,[/color]

I'd add the disks to a working OSR5 server and use that to read them.
[color=blue]
> and hence would not like to reinstall or reconfigure the
> system if at all possible.
> Any further questions or answrs needed please let me know, thanks for
> your time.
>[/color]

Tony Lawrences site has some good information on migrating OpenServer to
new hardware, I find it a bit hard to find.

[url]http://aplawrence.com/cgi-bin/indexget.pl?OSR5[/url]
leads to
[url]http://aplawrence.com/Unixart/supertarxfer.html[/url]
etc

<javabean04@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1155886098.348584.153180@b28g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...[color=blue]
> Hi,
>
> I am hoping to get some advice on the following scenario;
> We have an old unnamed server running SCO Open Server 5 on a Pentium
> Pro motherboard.
> This motherboard has now failed, can we move all hardware eg hard
> drives, Raid array, LAN card, video card and Stallion card to a
> completely new server?
> It's been a few years since I had to support SCO, but never really got
> in to this mess before. There is a certain programe installed and
> parameters set which of course nobody knows anything about, go figure.
> Asked what the DR was and they said this is is it, in other words I am
> flying blind, and hence would not like to reinstall or reconfigure the
> system if at all possible.
> Any further questions or answrs needed please let me know, thanks for
> your time.[/color]

The easiest solution would be to look at the old motherboard to find a part
number, and then use Google or eBay to locate the exact same model.
If you post the info here, one of us might even have the exact one you
need laying about collecting dust.

If any of your add-on cards are EISA (they look like ISA cards on
steroids), you'll have an extremely difficult job ahead of you, even if
you do find an exact replacement motherboard.

And before you go through all this trouble, are you certain it's the
motherboard at fault and not the power supply or the plug-in
voltage regulator module?

Bob

Hi all,
Thanks for the responses even with limited info. We have migrated all
hardware from one server to another server, without incident.
Now I am back to the orginal issue that caused all this in the first
place.
After boot we receive a Panic Trap error;
Panic : K_Trap mode trap type 0X0000000E
Unexpected trap in Kernel Mode
The the dump file, Server then reboots and Panic's again, needless to
say this then becomes an endless loop until someone powers off the
server.

More info on the system;
O/S is Open server release 5.0.0 built in 1997
Ram is 130Mb
Pentium Pro CPU 200Mhz
Raid card is DPT PCI
Stallion Card EISA
LAN Card 3COM PCI
5 Scsci HDD's apparently 2 have failed ?? No idea which is the main
drive?

This looks like a world of pain :-(
Again thanks for all your help and assistance, this is the first time
using these groups, very impressed.

[email]javabean04@gmail.com[/email] wrote:
[color=blue]
> Hi,
>
> I am hoping to get some advice on the following scenario;
> We have an old unnamed server running SCO Open Server 5 on a Pentium
> Pro motherboard.
> This motherboard has now failed, can we move all hardware eg hard
> drives, Raid array, LAN card, video card and Stallion card to a
> completely new server?
> It's been a few years since I had to support SCO, but never really got
> in to this mess before. There is a certain programe installed and
> parameters set which of course nobody knows anything about, go figure.
> Asked what the DR was and they said this is is it, in other words I am
> flying blind, and hence would not like to reinstall or reconfigure the
> system if at all possible.
> Any further questions or answrs needed please let me know, thanks for
> your time.
>
> JavaBean.[/color]

On 20 Aug 2006 22:28:39 -0700, [email]javabean04@gmail.com[/email] wrote:
[color=blue]
>javabean04@gmail.com wrote:
>[color=green]
>> Hi,
>>
>> I am hoping to get some advice on the following scenario;
>> We have an old unnamed server running SCO Open Server 5 on a Pentium
>> Pro motherboard.
>> This motherboard has now failed, can we move all hardware eg hard
>> drives, Raid array, LAN card, video card and Stallion card to a
>> completely new server?
>> It's been a few years since I had to support SCO, but never really got
>> in to this mess before. There is a certain programe installed and
>> parameters set which of course nobody knows anything about, go figure.
>> Asked what the DR was and they said this is is it, in other words I am
>> flying blind, and hence would not like to reinstall or reconfigure the
>> system if at all possible.
>> Any further questions or answrs needed please let me know, thanks for
>> your time.
>>
>> JavaBean.[/color][/color]

<flipped top-posting, please don't do that>[color=blue]
>Hi all,
> Thanks for the responses even with limited info. We have migrated all
>hardware from one server to another server, without incident.
>Now I am back to the orginal issue that caused all this in the first
>place.
>After boot we receive a Panic Trap error;
>Panic : K_Trap mode trap type 0X0000000E
>Unexpected trap in Kernel Mode
>The the dump file, Server then reboots and Panic's again, needless to
>say this then becomes an endless loop until someone powers off the
>server.
>
>More info on the system;
>O/S is Open server release 5.0.0 built in 1997
>Ram is 130Mb
>Pentium Pro CPU 200Mhz
>Raid card is DPT PCI
>Stallion Card EISA
>LAN Card 3COM PCI
>5 Scsci HDD's apparently 2 have failed ?? No idea which is the main
>drive?
>
>This looks like a world of pain :-(
>Again thanks for all your help and assistance, this is the first time
>using these groups, very impressed.
>[/color]

So are you sure the original motherboard was the problem? Are the
register dumps the *exact* same as you received in the old server?

In my experience a panic ending in E indicates a hardware issue.
Problem (in my mind) now is that a number of things have changed by
moving the hardware to a new server. Did you transfer the CPU and
memory as well? Perhaps the power supply? Are the add-in cards
getting the same IRQ as they did in the old server (rhetorical
question)...

Personally I would place all the components that were transferred into
the new server back into the old server *exactly* as they were before
(same slots, assuming nothing changed in the BIOS), fire it up and
work the problem from that side. Or, check
[url]http://aplawrence.com/consultants.html[/url] to see if there is someone near
you with SCO experience - Would save you MUCH trouble :-)


Scott McMillan