HPE 9000 and HPE e3000 Servers
1745813 Members
4022 Online
108722 Solutions
New Discussion юеВ

How to Cold Install HP-UX 10 from CD

 
SOLVED
Go to solution
glennes
Frequent Advisor

How to Cold Install HP-UX 10 from CD

I have an HP9000 K370 that will not display anything on the console. It goes through the complete power-up sequence, ending with an 0800 warning error on the LCD that no boot device can be found. It passes all other hardware checks in the power-up process. I suspect this happened because I turned the machine off with the switch instead of shutting it down properly, which likely corrupted the boot drive. It was working fine prior to that point, so a sudden hardware problem (other than a corrupted hard drive or firmware) does not seem likely to have occurred.

 

I want to cold install HP-UX 10.x from the install CD, but when I put the CD in the drive, the system does not see it as a boot location, even though the CD light will flash briefly during the turn-on sequence. How do I get the machine to see the CD drive as a boot device and boot from it since there is no text output on the console monitor? (It uses the standard monitor, not the graphics display. The system will attach itself to the monitor by turning it on in the latter part of the start-up process - the flashing green LED goes to solid, but no display output can be seen either before or after the 0800 error shows up on the LCD.) What I want to do is start the machine as if it were new with no OS installed, and install the OS from the HP UX 10.x distribution install CD. One would think there would be some kind of output on the console display even with no OS intalled and no boot drive found! Perhaps the firmware has become corrupted for some reason. Is that possible? If so, what is to be done to re-install the firmware?

 

Since this machine has been working fine up until I switched it off during shutdown, I doubt there is any hardware failure, other than possibly a corrupted hard drive or firmware failure. I have checked all the cables and they are securely plugged in. Originally, it booted up to a graphics screen for user name and password, neither of which I know, which is why I turned the switch to OFF to shutdown the machine.

 

I am not sure if the machine has an internal hard drive inside the K370 box. It has a separate rack with an HP Disk Array of 20 drives and came that way from HP.  Is one of these 20 drives likely the boot drive or is there an internal drive that serves as the boot drive? Also, I feel sure this system was mirrored using one of the drives in the array as a backup, but I have no idea which one of the 20 drives this is. Is there anything in the documentation that stipulates which drive in the array is the boot drive (if one actually is) and/or the mirror drive of the boot drive as perhaps swapping the main boot drive with the mirrored one might cause the system to boot? It also has a tape drive and I have some of the tapes. Can it be started up from one of these backup tapes? If so, how do I tell the machine to boot from the tape drive, or is the tape drive already in the firmware process that seeks the boot device upon power-up if it cannot find a hard drive to boot from?

 

BTW - The system has two UPS boxes - one for the K370 rack and one for the Disk Array rack. The one for the K370 does not work, so I have the K370 (and the tape drive) connected directly to the AC power source, bypassing the UPS. Would this have any bearing on the problem?

 

Any ideas are welcomed!

20 REPLIES 20
Torsten.
Acclaimed Contributor

Re: How to Cold Install HP-UX 10 from CD

This system is likely 20 years old now - wow.

First you should get the console working.

Is there a graphics card installed? You told about " booted up to a graphics screen"?

Hope this helps!
Regards
Torsten.

__________________________________________________
There are only 10 types of people in the world -
those who understand binary, and those who don't.

__________________________________________________
No support by private messages. Please ask the forum!

If you feel this was helpful please click the KUDOS! thumb below!   
glennes
Frequent Advisor

Re: How to Cold Install HP-UX 10 from CD

Torsten...

 

Thanks for responding so quickly! I appreciate that!

 

Yes, it is a rather old system. I bought it for a few pennies from a company I used to work for. It only had one application software product installed on it (and I do not need it or care if I lose it), so what I wanted to do is a fresh install from the install CD. I teach information systems and this is a good box to play around with HP-UX for my own experience, so it does not matter too much that the system is old. Among the software CDs that came with the machine is one for installing the graphics interface (I forget what that software is called), so I assume that is what they had done. There is a port on the back of the K370 for connecting a graphics console, but it is not a separate card/unit plugged into the system bus. The connector is on the same main I/O panel as the standard 15pin console connector. However, the monitor that came with the system is just your typical VGA monitor like you would see on a PC with the 15pin connector on both ends of the cable, and worked fine up until the boot fault warning message appeared on the LCD.

 

The graphsics output that I was referring to is likely nothing more than a contrived graphics-looking display that may well be more text based than fully graphics based. At any rate, the login screen displayed that way last time it booted up. You can hear the relay inside the monitor click when the K370 sends the connection command to the monitor and the monitor's LED goes from flashing to solid, so there is communication between the K370 and the monitor - there is just nothing showing on the monitor afterwards. Also, the optical mouse red light is on and, I assume, the keyboard works at that point as well - it just does not echo anything to the screen.

 

I thought there might be some keyboard sequence to force the K370 to boot from the CD as part of the power-up sequence since I know the CD in the drive is bootable (it is the HP install CD and I also have the recovery CD). I think if I could figure out how to get the system to poll the CD drive on power-up, it would boot from it, but, like on a PC BIOS, there may be something that has to be done at that level to set the first boot device to the CD drive instead of the hard drive.

 

I apologize for being so 'green' at all this, but thanks for putting up with my novice questions!

 

Glenn

Torsten.
Acclaimed Contributor

Re: How to Cold Install HP-UX 10 from CD

remove the keyboard and mouse cable, does the serial console work now?

Hope this helps!
Regards
Torsten.

__________________________________________________
There are only 10 types of people in the world -
those who understand binary, and those who don't.

__________________________________________________
No support by private messages. Please ask the forum!

If you feel this was helpful please click the KUDOS! thumb below!   
glennes
Frequent Advisor

Re: How to Cold Install HP-UX 10 from CD

Torsten...

 

I will give that a try and see what happens. I am tied up most of the morning, but should be able to give it a try later in the day. I will update you afterwards with what happens.

 

Glenn

Torsten.
Acclaimed Contributor

Re: How to Cold Install HP-UX 10 from CD

i mean, boot without these cables attached ...

Hope this helps!
Regards
Torsten.

__________________________________________________
There are only 10 types of people in the world -
those who understand binary, and those who don't.

__________________________________________________
No support by private messages. Please ask the forum!

If you feel this was helpful please click the KUDOS! thumb below!   
glennes
Frequent Advisor

Re: How to Cold Install HP-UX 10 from CD

Torsten...

 

Yes, I will ensure those cables are unplugged before powering-on the system. Thanks for the clarification!

 

Glenn

glennes
Frequent Advisor

Re: How to Cold Install HP-UX 10 from CD

I powered up with the keyboard and mouse unplugged. When the LCD said it was checking the console, a blue box came up at the bottom of the CRT briefly - I suppose in response to the K370 sending the console test signal to it, but then it went blank again with the same A0800 error about ot finding a boot drive came back on the LCD and that is where the startup process stops. I even tried another PS2 keyboard, but no luck. I cannot get the numlock/shiftlock/scroll lock lights on the keyboard (either one of them) to illuminate when pressing those keys, so I do not know if it is seeing the keyboard or not. The screen setup buttons on the CRT do work as I can set things like horizontal/vertical/skew/degauss, etc. and those graphics will display as the buttons are pressed, so I know the CRT is getting power.

 

Since all other tests on the LCD readout seem to pass until it gets to the boot step, what else could be causing this situation? Anything else I can try doing?

 

BTW - It has no internal hard drives in the internal hard drive bays, so it must be looking to boot from one of the disks in the Disk Array. There is a good bit of actiity according to the lights on the various drives in the Array, so it is communicating with them.  I have tried booting it with the Disk Array powered off to see if it would go to the CD drive, but it will not. The only thing I have not tried is putting a tape in the tape drive to see what happens; however, no lights flash on the tape drive during the power-on process, so I am not sure it is looking at the tape drive during the process. The CD LED does not flash during the power-on process either. It just flashes a moment when inserting a CD.

 

Thanks!

 

Glenn

Torsten.
Acclaimed Contributor

Re: How to Cold Install HP-UX 10 from CD

these systems have 2 configured boot pathes, usually both point to to the disks. for other devices you need to interact with the boot menu. we need console access. switch off the terminal, hold down "d" key while switch on for some seconds for defaults. could you take a picture of the rear side?

Hope this helps!
Regards
Torsten.

__________________________________________________
There are only 10 types of people in the world -
those who understand binary, and those who don't.

__________________________________________________
No support by private messages. Please ask the forum!

If you feel this was helpful please click the KUDOS! thumb below!   
Torsten.
Acclaimed Contributor

Re: How to Cold Install HP-UX 10 from CD

What is the error message in the display?

WARN Ax08 means no bootable device found.

So it would be a good idea to check the disk array (known as nike20). Connect the terminal to the serial port of the array and you will get a text based menu (known as grid manager). Make sure to set the terminal to vt100 or em100 mode)- However, it would be helpful to get the servers console too.

Hope this helps!
Regards
Torsten.

__________________________________________________
There are only 10 types of people in the world -
those who understand binary, and those who don't.

__________________________________________________
No support by private messages. Please ask the forum!

If you feel this was helpful please click the KUDOS! thumb below!