just fired up the k460 have some questions

[Michael Kurczewski]

I was given an old k460 that was going to be disposed of. I have a few drive arrays with it and a dlt 4000 tape backup with four external drives.

I fired it up and the monitor says one of my drives log file is full. Not a big deal the server has HPUX 10.xxx on it I want to blow away the existing os and put 11.11i version 1 on it.

When I install the new os on it will it format the arrays and all of the drives giving me a clean machine? That is what I want so I can start playing with it.

Also on the server led screen it says run F04F and has the cpus 0123 under it. What does that mean?

The cd-rom is not working but I think that is a power thing or a lose cable as it appears to not have any power going to it. I don't think I have to mount it.

Thanks,
Mike

[Bill Hassell]

When you install HP-UX, only the root disk will be formatted. The rest of the disks remain as they were. If you don't want to save the data on those disks, just use pvcreate -f to prepare them for a new volume group.

F04F is normal when the machine is running. The first letter is always F, the 0 is the current load, the 4 is the number of processors and the last character is always F. So the only value to change while the OS is running will be the 0. Now during selftest, the LCD display will have lots of different values. Here's a good reference:

http://www.openpa.net/led.html

[Michael Kurczewski]

I found the codes after I wrote the message. Thanks for the quick reply. Do I use the pvcreate -f command after I load the new operating system?

I also have some space left in my raid array and have some old 2 gb. drives I can fill it with. Do I have to have an even number of the same size drives so the raid can mirror correctly or will it auto negotiate the parameters wit the total space given?
Thanks,
Mike

[Bill Hassell]

When you first load the OS, the root disk will be overwritten but the rest of the disks will be unaffected. Then install the mirroring software.

After you load the OS and mirroring software, you will need to download the 3 packages of patches, the Quality Pack (or Gold Pack, the HWE (hardware patches) and the online diagnostics. You can find the patch bundles at:

http://www2.itrc.hp.com/service/patch/releaseIndexPage.do?BC=patch.breadcrumb.main|

and the diagnostics:

http://h20293.www2.hp.com/portal/swdepot/displayInstallInfo.do?productNumber=B6191AAE

Now you are ready to mirror the root disk. Since there are several steps, it's better to download and print the LVM docs. Nowq since this is a sandbox system (not in production), you don't have to worry about hot-swap for the root disks. The external box (you mentioned RAID array) won't need mirroring since it is already protected. The ioscan command will show you all the disks and device files:

ioscan -knfC disk

To clear the disks and prep them for use in a volume group, use pvcreate -f /dev/rdsk/whatever, then run sam to create the volume group and whatever logical volumes you need.

[Dave Unverhau_1]

Mike,

You mentioned "a few drive arrays"... what kind of arrays are these? Are they HP arrays and, if so, are they Autoraid or "Nike" arrays?

Here's a link to documentation on the Autoraid 12H arrays: http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/DocumentIndex.jsp?contentType=SupportManual〈=en&cc=us&docIndexId=179911&taskId=101&prodTypeId=12169&prodSeriesId=33733

When adding disks to the Autoraid, they don't need to be added in pairs, the controller will optimize the use of the added storage. However, you need to be aware of the type of drives you add. For one thing, if you add drives larger than 18GB, you may need to upgrade the controller firmware (you mentioned extra 2GB disks, so this is probably not an issue). Also, the old Autoraid arrays used 7200 rpm disk modules. upgrading to 10k rpm modules required upgrading the fan modules to help ventilate the extra heat they generated.

If your arrays are something different, let us know, and we'll try to provide info for them.

Best Regards,

Dave

[Joshua Scott]

One thing to look out for is if you are going to load HP-UX 11i, you will need more than 4GB of space for a full install, so you may want to make sure you have enough space available.

What kind of drive arrays do you have?

Josh

[Michael Kurczewski]

Joshua,
All of the autoraid cabinets are HP the model numbers are:

A331A with (3) 4.3 gb. drives
A3516a with (10) 2.0 gb. drives
A3700A with (6) 18.2 gb. drives
A3700A with (11) 9.1 gb. drives

The server itself has 4 36 gb. drives (I think). I know there are 4 drives I haven't looked at them yet.

The autoraid with the 10 2.0 gb. drives is not cabled and I don't see any other places to cable it on the server. Can I fill the empty slots in the other autoraid bays with the 2.0 drives?

I probably can daisy chain the autoraid to another one but might as well fill the empty slots with the 2.0 drives and use that much less power and and have one less thing to configure.

Mike