rx2660 OpenVMS USB DVD ROM Drive

[L Ron Hansen]

I have purchased a brand new rx2660 and cannot install OpenVMS 8.3. Like a previous post, i get caught in the mount verification loop when using the built-in drive. When i use an external DVD rom drive I don't get the verification loop, i just hang. I'm looking over the errata now but am wondering since someone from HP said it should boot anyway regardless of the errata that why it wouldn't.

[Hoff]

If I had a real installation kit and a brand-new Integrity server system and saw installation problems as have been reported here, I'd be on the phone to whomever I purchased the box from. FWIW.

I'd wonder if this was flaky hardware, for instance, or a bad distro disk.

Mind posting a pointer to the previous post discussing a mount verification loop? A search of ITRC via Google turns up nothing obvious.

The external USB path might or might not work, depending on the particular USB DVD widget. The internal DVD drive *should* work.

[L Ron Hansen]

Actually i got the machine from CDW and it was a very good deal. They cannot sell me openvms however so i've purchased that separately and am actually awaiting the license for it as well as new media. This is not my first installation, i have a 2620 also which worked find and so have 8.3 media which i attempted to boot on the 2660. This is the media that has failed to boot. This may very well be what my problem is, but i don't have any FIS and at this point have called a consultant in to take a look. The DVD Rom drive itself i've swapped out with one from a dl360g5 it spins and i can view the file system and even attempt to boot from the file on the disk but all fails. The previous post that dealt with a similar issue was: thread iD: 1133578...http://forums1.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadid=1133578
Thanks
Larry

[Hoff]

Ok; a little more digging.

This consultant would advise you to tell your consultant to apply VMS83I_RX2660-V0100 or later and a small herd of ECO kits indicated below, and try again.

The base distro looks like it won't boot this box without an ECO kit. You'll have to remaster it yourself with the ECO kit applied, or load the distro onto a disk, apply the ECO, and boot that disk.

http://www.docs.hp.com/en/5991-8664/5991-8664.pdf

For information on remastering bootable disks, see http://64.223.189.234/node/28

Stephen Hoffman
HoffmanLabs LLC

[Colin Butcher]

Hello,

I tried my V8.3 DVD kit on a rx2660 internal DVD - and it booted and installed just fine.

Doesn't help you much, but at least this consultant knows it works here!

Maybe there's some firmware issues or a configuration issue with the rx2660 itself?

Can you list the devices and drivers on the console at EFI level, along with the available FSn: devices? There may be a small but important difference betwen your machine and the one I have here.

I'll try to find time to do something similar and post the results.

Cheers, Colin (http://www.xdelta.co.uk).

[L Ron Hansen]

Thanks Everyone, I do have an actual long time vms guru coming over and i think it may be an actual media version issue as i'm attempting to boot a july2006 media and there is newer media out there. I'll be receiving the latest media from HP any time now. It would be interesting to know what media date you ran that was successful against the rx2660.
If the latest doesn't work i will need to try "slip streaming" the patches into a new install media, or load from my 2620. I'll respond with results as soon as i get the new media!
Thanks,
Larry

[Hoff]

Newer media?

The process of taking an existing release and applying changes and/or ECOs would be what was classically known as "remastering".

Interesting.

[L Ron Hansen]

Sry,
Yes I believe there is media dated feb 2007 vs. The july 2006 media i currently have, and yes I meant remastering the boot media.

[Colin Butcher]

Hello,

I'm using media dated July 2006 (label I64083) and it boots & installs just fine on the rx2660 here, including on a built-in SAS controller RAID mirrored pair of discs.

Cheers, Colin (http://www.xdelta.co.uk).

[Martin Vorlaender]

Colin,

what brand of USB DVD drive does your rx2660 have?

cu,
Martin

[Martin Vorlaender]

@Colin:

just tried it again (though not with the system that triggered http://forums1.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=1133578 ) and failed again.

I'm appending the system EFI's INFO ALL output for reference.

@Hoff:

I'm in the process of remastering the 8.3 DVD with VMS83_UPDATE V2.0, but PRODUCT INSTALL tells me I can't have a destination with a patch kit...
Exactly how do I integrate the ECO with the DVD?

@L.Ron:

Sorry for hijacking your thread...

cu,
Martin

[Colin Butcher]

Hello Martin,

Here's the information from this rx2660 - see attached output from from OpenVMS and from EFI: INFO ALL, DEVICES and DRIVERS).

It's a TEAC DVD-RW drive. I don't know for certain, but as with the PCI bus modules - are there drives that are OS specific for device support?

Cheers, Colin.

[Hoff]

>>>Exactly how do I integrate the ECO with the DVD?<<<

Ok; you can't do this on the system you need to boot from here. You need another system around to support this sort of thing. (I'd offer to re-master it for you, but I don't want to run afoul of HP copyrights. If an HP rep clears it, that's another matter.)

Here's how to do it: if you're rolling your own distro, you'll be cloning the distro kit over onto an LD or onto a scratch disk, apply the ECO kits onto that there, and then use it to burn the disk.

(This is the basic re-mastering process I mentioned.)

Here's a detailed description of creating and booting bootable disks for OpenVMS.

http://64.223.189.234/node/28

Here, I'd probably use an external SCSI disk and build the system disk on another system. Haul one of the little bricks somewhere else to load it, or haul over another SCSI brick from somewhere else (if you've a PCI SCSI bus).

Alternatively, call up HP and ask for details of and a copy of this apparent re-mastered V8.3 DVD, or ask of the V8.3-1H1 stuff on the roadmap might be useful here.

Re-mastering has been a comparatively rare process (probably due to the costs and confusion?), and the disks were usually (always?) labeled to indicate which of the two versions were on which distribution medium.

>>>I don't know for certain, but as with the PCI bus modules - are there drives that are OS specific for device support?<<<

Individual CD and DVD drives can and do have differing personalities. Some of the drives out there in the market are close to the center of the compatibility spectrum, and some are far out toward the fringes.

This CD drive happens to be USB, and some of these are pretty good and some are, well, not so good. One of the worst drives I've ever seen was an IDE/ATAPI drive sold with a USB bridge.

[Martin Vorlaender]

Thanks, Hoff & Colin.

I now have a remastered OE DVD that includes VMS83_UPDATE V2.0 and, using it, I have successfully booted the rx2660.

Fortunately, I do have access to an rx2600 that includes a DVD+-RW drive and a spare SCSI disk, so the remastering was relatively easy; sketching the necessary steps:
- Boot DKA0: (standard 8.3 system disk)
- Insert OE DVD in DQA0:
- BACKUP/IMAGE DQA0: DKB200:
- Boot DKB200: -flags 0,1 - Setting WRLKSYS to 0 for this boot
- Remove the UPDATE V2.0 kit ESW file (the DVD-booted system can't cope with it)
- Apply UPDATE V2.0
- Reboot into DKA0:
- BACKUP/IMAGE DKB200: LDAx:
- SET BOOTBLOCK /BLOCK_SIZE=2048 /I64 LDAx:
- Insert empty DVD+R medium into DQA0:
- COPY /RECORD LDAx: DQA0:

I am a happy camper. Thanks everyone.

cu,
Martin

[Jon Pinkley]

Martin,

Thanks for the summary of the steps you used to get a working "patched" boot DVD. We don't currently have any IA64 systems, but this looks like it could be a handy thing for many people to have.

Jon