Booting from CD

[Jan van den Ende]

Geni,

No way to get in a position to do that, it would seem!

Andrij,

You really got those messages, after using
SYSBOOT> set startup_p1 "MIN"
cont
??

If so, look a few answers back about booting from CD.
It seems like you are down to that solution.

Proost.

Have one on me.

jpe

[Andrij CAde]

I can boot to the CD and get to enter DCL commands. when I enter show devices, it only comes back with the CD drive. I then did mount/over=ID DKA0. It still not in Show Devices. Then I try to mount it again and it says:

Device already mounted
No operator to service request

What commands do I need to get into the HD of the machine so I can purge the necessary files?

[Hoff]

If your system disk is DKA0: and you are booted from your distro CD, then you can use SET DEFAULT DKA0:[000000] or such and look around. You can issue DIRECTORY, PURGE and DELETE commands, as appropriate for your environment.

I'd probably look to find bigger files with:
DIRECTORY/SIZE/SELECT=SIZE=MINIMUM=1000 DKA0:[*...]*.*

And see which ones to delete of all those that are listed from the command -- the command will list any file of 1000 blocks or more in size. Some of these will probably be (big) junk files. Various of the files shown will not be "junk" files, so don't delete them all.

Also start the process around purchasing more and/or bigger disks, as I'm going to wager this configuration is using fewer and older and correspondingly tiny disks.

[Steven Schweda]

> I can boot to the CD and get to enter DCL
> commands. when I enter show devices, it
> only comes back with the CD drive.

Actual commands with actual output would be
nice here.

> I then did mount/over=ID DKA0.

Error message?

> It still not in Show Devices. Then I try
> to mount it again and it says:
>
> Device already mounted

I don't see how the disk can _not_ appear in
a SHOW DEVICES report, and also be "already
mounted". And because I can't see what you
do or what you see, it's not easy to figure
out what's happening.

> [...] How do I get to Console Mode [...]

> [...]correct syntax to mount the drive?

> [...] How do you boot "MIN" ?

Just a suggestion: If you know very little
about VMS, it would help everyone if you say
so at the beginning, rather than getting a
lot of good answers which don't have all the
detail you seem to need.

Similarly, showing the actual commands you
use, and their actual output, would help more
than your vague descriptions of what you did
and what happened.

[Willem Grooters]

(It is usual (AFAIK) that the prompt is shown for clarity if you have to enter data - for console that is ">>>", for plain DCL "$" - don't type it when you enter a command on instruction. Options to commands are within "[" and "]". I use to put parameters between < and > (like if you have to enter a device, for instance)

Follow these footsteps:

1. Start the machine (don't boot VMS. If it does, Use CTRL-P to get to the console prompt: >>>)
2. in console mode, enter:
>>> SHO *boot*
This will (hopefully, I have no console at hand AND it can differ per system) tell you what the USUAL boot-device is. (it doesn't have to be DKA0:) Keep that in mind. If this is not set up, you'll have to look later on.
3. Boot from CD - that seemed to work.
4. Select the option to enter DCL commands. This will lead to a prompt '$$$'
5. $$$ SHOW DEVICE D
will show all disks known to VMS at that point. The disk you found in 2 should show up. If it's missing, or none was mentioned there, you'll have to check all disks in this list (steps 6 and on)
6. Mount the disk to examine (the one found in (2) or the next in search according the list in (5):
$$$ MOUNT/OVER=ID
7. To see if this is the system disk, examine it the Q & D way (not failsafe, but usually correct):
$$$ DIR :[000000]VMS$COMMON.DIR
If there is no error, it's likely to actually be a system disk.
If so, proceed with the next step, otherwise you may skip these for other disk, but my recommendation is to execute the commands on ALL disks)
7. Check the disk for free space:
$$$ SHOW DEVICE : /FULL
There is an entry "free blocks". If this is (very) low, it's time to clean up:
8. Purge the whole disk:
$$$ PURGE [/LOG] :[000000...]
That will leave just the highest versions of the file intact and remove everything else.
Check size as above.
If still to little room available, you'll have to remove some files; logfiles are often a good target (Don't tell the system manager):

$$$ DELETE :[000000...]*.log;* [/BEFORE=]

Use option /BEFORE to limit removal to "old" files and leave "new" files alone - to please system management ;))

9. Dismount the disk
$$$ DISMOUNT
If you dind't find the system disk, repeat from step 6.
10. When done, logout, and you'll return to the setup menu. Reboot the machine, or, if (2) did not reveal the system disk, shutdown the system and boot manualy, using the device you found to be the system disk.

If this fails with the same error, it might be that your pagefile(s) are on a different disk than the system disk (not uncommon...)
That's why I recommend purging ALL disks).

Another way to see if the disk is a system disk - and very useful if {2} didn't reveal the bootflags:
$$$ DIR :[000000]SYS%.DIR
$$$ DIR :[000000]SYS%%.DIR
This will tell you the possible first number in the "-flags n,m" parameter on boot: Which system root to use. On a standalone machine, this is ussually 0 - so you would have found a 'SYS0.DIR'. Odds are you may find more (I do have several for different environments).

Once up and running, find out if you can free up some space on ALL disks. It used to be a good practice to have at least 20% of free space, though current disks may allow for a smaller amount.

HTH

WG

[Andrij CAde]

It was going good until:


5. $$$ SHOW DEVICE D

dka0 online

6. Mount the disk to examine (the one found in (2) or the next in search according the list in (5):
$$$ MOUNT/OVER=ID

Mount-I-Mounted, ALPHASYS mounted on _dka0
mount-I-Rebuild, Volume was improperly dismounted; rebuild in progress

7. To see if this is the system disk, examine it the Q & D way (not failsafe, but usually correct):
$$$ DIR :[000000]VMS$COMMON.DIR

RMS-E-DNF, Directory not found
System-W-Nosuchfile, No Such File

7. Check the disk for free space:
$$$ SHOW DEVICE : /FULL

I did this and came back with 0 free blocks.

8. Purge the whole disk:
$$$ PURGE [/LOG] :[000000...]

I then tried to purge using
$$$PURGE/LOG dka0:*.log

respose:

Purge-w-serachfail, error searching for dka0:[sysexe]*.log
RMS-E-DNF, Directory not found
System-W-NoSuchFile, No Such File
Purge-I-NoFilepurg, no files purged

I don't know what is going. It seems very straight forward and probably very simple solution. Any help is great appreciated.

Andrij

[Jan van den Ende]

Andrij,

this is looking really suspicious.

Can you post the output of

$ dir dka0:[000000]

and of

$ dir dka0:[*]

we wilt take it (if we can!) from there.

Proost.

Have one on me.

jpe

[Volker Halle]

Andrij,

> I then tried to purge using
> $$$PURGE/LOG dka0:*.log

Your command was wrong. You need to enter

$$$PURGE/LOG dka0:[*...]*.LOG

Volker.

[Jan van den Ende]

Ah, Volker, your eyes are better than mine!

Andrij,

it is not so bleak yet as I feared.

To explain what Volker indicated:

You specified to purge the .LOG files. But which?
You specified DKA0:*.LOG

Do, device DKA0:
Directory? NONE specified, so, supply from DEFAULT. And obiously your defauly deirectory was [SYSEXE] (probably because it was taken from the authorisation file, or you changed it with SET DEFAULT.
The example specified [000000]
Next the example specified just a little more: [...] in the dir-spec. Which means: this directory, and all subdirectories.

So, all in all, the system was right: there is no toplevel SYSEXE.DIR.


However
>>>
$$$ DIR :[000000]VMS$COMMON.DIR

RMS-E-DNF, Directory not found
System-W-Nosuchfile, No Such File
<<<

You specified DKA0 for , right?

If that _IS_ the case, then you will face another problem: the infamous VMS$COMMON alias issue.

Let us first see that we get you back in the air, but then please come back to address this issue. It is rather easy to repair, but could potentially cause serious future problems.

Proost.

Have one on me.

jpe

[Steven Schweda]

> You specified DKA0 for , right?

I assume that this is pointless, but why are
you trying to hide what could be useful
details, instead of following a simple
suggestion?

> [...] showing the actual commands you
> use, and their actual output, would help more
> than your vague descriptions of what you did
> and what happened.

How hard do you want to make things for the
people who are trying to help you?