BACKUP of fragmented disk reboots VMS

[BrianT_1]

AW> If I search through the release notes
AW> in SYS$HELP, I find it mentioned in:
AW>
AW> VAXY2K01_U2055.RELEASE_NOTES
AW>
AW> Kits superseded by this kit:
AW>
AW> ...
AW> VAXBACK05_U2055 (Backup utility)

Well, I had certainly installed VAXY2K01_U2055 because the release notes are in SYS$HELP. Perhaps I should reinstall the BACKUP image from that kit.

AW> And as an aside, reading this and your
AW> other recent threads, (and I have no
AW> affiliation with the vendor) you really AW> should look into CHARON-VAX.

That takes money. Some other sites of the company for which I work have had their VAXes replaced with Charon VAX and it was justified using the reduction in maintenance contract costs. We haven't had maintenance for ten years and the planners can't find any cost savings large enough to pay for buying it for my site.

RG> If one does not have the disk space,
RG> another option is to write the BACKUP
RG> save set over DECnet to another node
RG> that is better endowed with disk space.

Clearly. Naturally I already knew this and would have used it were I able.

SS> Or the disk? If the cause of the crash
SS> is a complete mystery, why rule in the
SS> output device, but rule out the input
SS> device?

It's hard to suspect a device that never reports anything in the error log.

SS> Can you do BACKUP of another
SS> (comparable) disk to the same tape
SS> drive/medium?

I have. It worked, but this particular disk is the only one with the level of fragmentation and I thought I remember reading of a bug that caused BACKUP to fault when there was a high level of fragmentation. And yes, I checked BUGCHECKFATAL to make sure it was zero.

SS> Does ANAL /DISK have anything to say
SS> about the problem disk?

No.

GF> ...or can we have a look at the top few
GF> lines from an "SDA> SHOW CRASH" output?

%SDA-E-DUMPEMPTY, dump file contains no valid dump

EG> To rule out the output device you could
EG> try the following:
EG>
EG> $ BACKUP/IMAGE DISK: NL:X.BCK/SAV/LOG

Of course.

I think I'll go get the BACKUP pieces from the Y2K kit again.

[Richard W Hunt]

Given the symptoms you report, I have to think your crash dump must not be set up correctly. OK, when everything works fine, your bean-counters get really tight with the bucks. But something you said in passing makes me think you need to start looking at your hardware more closely.

To make that work, I think you need to assure that your crash dump file is good AND that the error log file is properly set up to be retained post-crash. I recall running with VAX/VMS 5.x, which was pretty good with crash dump analysis and such - but we had to assure that we could get good information for the rare times when our VAXen would hiccup.

If no device errors are being reported, what about memory errors? Since you aren't even retaining crash information, you can't tell whether it is one of those pesky little bugchecks for taking a memory fault at elevated IPL or something like that.

I would review your crash dump and SYSGEN parameters related to same to verify that you are using the correct crash dump style and that you have a proper crash dump file.

I also hope it isn't your system disk that is so badly clogged up. But on the other hand, if this gets bad enough, have you tried a standalone backup booting from the distribution media? Yeah, I know it is slower than Arctic molasses in February, but standalone backup will use default SYSGEN settings and will guarantee no competition from any background tasks. In this situation, it would rule out some issues for you. Which would be a positive thing.

[Art Wiens]

"planners can't find any cost savings large enough to pay for buying it for my site"

I'm sure they'll be very proud of how much money they saved when the system disk needs to be restored and you've got tapioca on tape!

Good luck,
Art

[Art Wiens]

"I think I'll go get the BACKUP pieces from the Y2K kit again"

No, don't bother, the BACKUP.EXE in VAXY2K01_U2055.A is :

image file identification: "VAX 552R_62-000"
link date/time: 4-MAR-1998 17:10:01.46

I'll see if I can find where the newer one came from.

Cheers,
Art

[Art Wiens]

That was easier than I thought ...

it comes from : VAXODS1_01_U2055.A

Art

[BrianT_1]

AW> I'll see if I can find where the newer
AW> one came from.

Can you answer my earlier question about whether the VAX 552R_62-000 or the VAX V6.1-008 version is the newer?

[BrianT_1]

BT> Can you answer my earlier question
BT> about whether the VAX 552R_62-000 or
BT> the VAX V6.1-008 version is the newer?

After reading the release notes for the ODS1 ECO, it seems to me that the BACKUP image it contains is the same as on VMS V6.2, which would be later than the "VAX V6.1-008" image found in VAXBACK4_U2055. Is this correct?

[Art Wiens]

I don't think you can say that The date on the V6.2 distribution savesets is 15-May-1995. The BACKUP.EXE included in there is actually:

image file identification: "T6.2-FT3"
link date/time: 22-APR-1995 00:38:14.23

I guess it would seem "obvious" from the link dates, but it's hard to say what "new features" in 6.1 and 6.2 were being back ported to 5.5-2H4. It was supposed to be a shortlived hardware specific release (for the VAX 4000-100's IIRC - July 1993) until they could put that support into v6. Suddenly 15 years slip by ;-)

Cheers,
Art

[Volker Halle]

Brian,

operating systems can crash. Even OpenVMS systems...

But if you can provide the required information about the crashdump, those problems can be identified and solved. It's either a hardware problem, which needs to be fixed or a software problem, which needs a certain patch applied. If you would really find a bug that's never been fixed for V5.5-2H4, you're out of luck. But the chances for this are quite small.

Please set DUMPSTYLE=3 (selective and full console output) and provide the output of the crash as an attached .TXT file.

Volker.

[BrianT_1]

VH> Please set DUMPSTYLE=3 (selective and
VH> full console output) and provide the
VH> output of the crash as an attached .TXT
VH> file.

I'm trying the backup to a remote saveset. If it crashes, I'll do what you ask. If it doesn't, I'd say that the tape drive is the problem.