cannot boot, disk full

[bkelly13]

We have a VAX FT110 and FT810 running VMS 5.5. The FT110 will not boot complaining of insuficient disk space. After more than a half hour of error messages, someone pulled the plug. How so I boot this thing in a safe mode such that I can clean up the disk and allow regular boot. I can find the application scratch/log areas, but I don't know where VMS stores its log files.

Thank you.

[bkelly13]

I don't see an edit function for my original post. Before my post I did a few searches with no results. Then I found a recent thread, VMS DISK HELP by Mathew Murdock. I have that infomation so no need to repeat what is there. Anything new will be helpful.

[marsh_1 · Accepted solution]

hi,

hoff has a good writeup on this at his site here :-

http://labs.hoffmanlabs.com/node/939

[Hoff]

Have a look at /OpenVMS Tips: Your System Disk Is Full? DEVICEFULL?/ at:

http://labs.hoffmanlabs.com/node/939

[bkelly13]

That is helpful. This is a legacy system on its way out but is rather important to keep running for another three to six months. It is a application system with no users. Disks have failed and we are down to the system disk only. There is only the single application so once I get the disk cleaned up some, it should be okay.

Is there anyone that does consulting work in case I get in over my head? If so, tell me how to contact you and what your rates are. This is in Brevard county of Florida. I can be reached at b2 at bkelly dot ws. Replace the words and spaces for an accurate email address.

[Mike Kier]

You've already visited Hoff's site and he consults as do Bob Gezelter and other members in this forum.

I don't think there were a large number of fault-tolerant VAXen sold and probably not a lot of them still in operation. I'd check around when it comes time to decomission them and see if any of the historical/retro-computing sites would want them or see if they'd fetch a decent price on an e-Bay auction rather than just scrapping them.

[bkelly13]

Good Thoughts. These have been very reliable computers. They have been running since about 1993 with almost no maintenance. I was really saddened when DEC was bought out, effectively going out of business. I think they are government owned, but I will pass the suggestion up and see what happends.

If anyone is interested in a VAX FT110 or two FT810s, let me know. I don't know about the 110, but half of each 810 is working and I think the problem is power supply in both.

[John McL]

I've seen a similar situation arise and what Hoff says is fine but a good file to blow away or move is the error log.

This might sound strange since this is the file that you'll need to look at but if the errors are still occurring a new error log will be created very quickly, what's more analyzing that error log file will be quicker because it will only be small.

[Hoff]

On the boxes I manage, I roll the error logs over periodically. Same as with OPERATOR.LOG, auditing, accounting, and a few other similar files. (On most Unix boxes, this log roll-over is typically automatic.) If storage is at a premium, zip the older files, too.

[Robert Gezelter]

Mike,

Thank you for the compliment.

Bryan,

I agree with Hoff's comments about the logs, although I would definitely want to ZIP them for possible review. If an error is happening, history could be important.

As I am sure you are unsurprised, I recommend a healthy degree of caution. Information deleted cannot easily be recovered in this situation, and from the postings, it would appear that the systems have been left to their own devices (pun unintended) for an extended period.

- Bob Gezelter, http://www.rlgsc.com