Query on VaxELN

[Ronny_7]

Hi,

My customer has this Vax4000-105A running on VaxELN. I understand this is very old product but I am hoping I can get some advise from this forum.

This VaxELN software has an image bootable tape which used to boot from this system.

Recently, we replaced the motherboard on this system and now we are unable to boot from this tape.

We have tried the VaxELN tape on other systems at customer's site and it is booting fine.

We have verified the hardware and could not find any errors.
We have also created an OpenVMS standalone backup tape and the system is able to boot from this tape with no problem.

Any advise will be very much appreciated.

Thanks and Regards,
Ronny

Below is the error message,
>>>b mua0
(BOOT/R5:0 MUA0)

2..
-MUA0
1..0..

%VAXELN system initializing

VAXELN V4.6 QBUS

Bootstrap starting.
Mounting Tape Drive.
Mount Tape failed. Reason -- %KERNEL-F-NO_SUCH_NAME, no such name

[Antoniov.]

Hi Ronny,
I don't know VAXELN so I guess tape name is something different; may be a logical name of tape.
Can you boot using conversional boot?

@Antoniov

[Ian Miller.]

Is the replaced motherboard identical?

[Ronny_7]

Hi Antoniov,

Can you explain a little more on the conversional boot?

Hi Ian,

The motherboard replaced is identical and we have checked the jumpers and the console settings as well.

Thanks and Regards,
Ronny

[Antoniov.]

Hi Ronny,
conversional boot give you control on boot process; you can modify SYSGEN param (to make a minimal bootstrap).
Conversional boot is activated by command:
>>>B MUAO /R5:1
Here there is an article cha help you:
http://h71000.www7.hp.com/wizard/faq/vmsfaq_005.html#mgmt5

@Antoniov

[Martin P.J. Zinser]

Hi,

just for clarification, VAXELN is not VMS or a layered product on top of VMS. For all I know it is a realtime operating system running on VAX hardware. Supposedly VxWorks would be the equivalent for Alpha. Now, I am the first to admit that I know next to nothing about VAXELN, but the message does look like the system is not really finding the tape drive (the messages in before are from the boot rom from what I can tell). So, what do you see if you do a sh dev on the boot prompt?

Greetings, Martin

[Rob Boor]

Hi,

a VAXELN image is 'tailored' for specific CPU boards, so it looks like other HW is used compared to the one which is working.

If you want to run on the newer HW, you'll have to rebuild the VAXELN image with the VAXELN toolkit and select the appropriate HW.

With the current image you can't change the settings, in this case you're out of luck.

I hope customer has still his VAXELN environment to rebuild the image.

regards,
Rob Boor, HP Services, Utrecht - The Netherlands.

[Ronny_7]

Hi Martin,

The system is able to detect the tape drive device when we show device at console.
We verified with another system which is able to boot the VAXELN tape and it is showing the same output.

Hi Rob,

Can you explain a little more on VAXELN image is tailored to specific H/W?

The motherboard replaced is the same model as the original.

we have tried the image tape on other V4000-105A systems at customer's site and they booted fine.

we have also tried replace with a V4000-100 motherboard and it booted fine as well.

Thanks and Regards,
Ronny

[Stanley F Quayle]

Have you looked at CHARON-VAX? We have customers running VAXELN successfully, on modern (and faster) hardware:

http://www.stanq.com/charon-vax.html

Of course, this doesn't explain why your tape doesn't boot, but might get you out of the woods...

[Rob Boor]

Hi Ronny,

within VAXELN all HW is built with it's specific information (Vector/CSR) addresses are within the image. Note there's is nothing like the 'normal' OpenVMS utility 'mc sysgen autoconfige all'. If vector/csr settings are different, devices will not be present in VAXELN.

So check all setting of the CPU board and/or double check the CPU board if it's a real VAX4000-105A or a VAXserver 4000 model

Hope this will help you out.

Rob.