Vax 4500

[vmsserbo]

I got this emailfrom one ofour users at a remote site.


"Need assistant to restore the "MINI VAX 4000-500
Please note, when this system was before hooked up at its new location, it was refusing to boot:

It would run through its hardware tests, and then throw an error, either DEVASSIGN or NOSUCHDEV."

What can I do to help this user out?

[Duncan Morris]

Hi Miles,

at a first guess, I would suggest that the system boot device has failed. Both DEVASSIGN and NOSUCHDEV would indicate that the default boot device cannot be found. Either the drive ID has changed, or possibly the disk didn't survive the move.

Record system default - At the console prompt, type the following and record results.
>>>SHOW BOOT
>>>SHOW HALT
>>>SHOW BFLG

Check the available devices from the console to see what you actually have available.

[vmsserbo]

I WILL HAVE THE USER TRY THAT.

THANKS

[Steven Schweda · Accepted solution]

I, too, would vote for a bad system disk as
an initial suspect. Also:

>>> SHOW DEVICE

to see what's (really still) there.

It might help to see the exact messages from
the system console when it tries to start.

It's often helpful to run a terminal emulator
on some convenient (other) computer, and
connect its serial port to the console
terminal port on the VAX. Most terminal
emulators have some sort of logging
capability which makes collecting the data
easier than transcribing the text from the
screen of your VT100.

Of course, if your remote user can't set it
up that way, you may be stuck with the more
manual method.

[John Gillings]

Rather than a bad disk, I'd guess the CPU battery has gone flat (age) and all the console settings and variables have been lost.

Check ALL the console variables, and make sure they're restored to what they're supposed to be (you did make a note of them before you moved the system, yes?)

You'll probably have also lost the system time, so will get a prompt to set it when you manage to reboot.

[Steven Schweda]

> [...] CPU battery [...]

No bets, but if it lost its mind, I'd expect
a different complaint.

My VAX 4000-200 is normally off, so it's
normally pretty confused when I wake it up.
First comes the language inquiry, then:

[...]
Tests completed.
Loading system software.
No default boot device has been specified.

Available devices.
-DIA0 (RF72)
-DUA0 (RA90)
-DUA1 (RA90)
-DUA2 (RA90)
-DUA4 (RA81)
-EZA0 (08-00-2B-1C-FD-04)

Device? [EZA0]:

(BOOT/R5:0 EZA0)

2..
-EZA0
Retrying network bootstrap.
[...]


So, figuring that a -500 is at least as
clever as a -200, I'd guess that this system
knows enough to use a disk, knows which disk
to use, and can't find it.

But the first "SHOW xxx" suggestions should
reveal the empty-head problem if that's it.

As usual, however, the actual messages would
probably have told us more than the vague
interpretations of them did.