Deleting 3000 System Disks That Go Bad
May 30, 2014
As Hewlett-Packard's 3000s age, their disks go bad. It's the fate of any component with moving parts, but it's especially notable now that an emulated 3000 is a reality. The newest HP-built 3000 is at least 11 years old by now. Disks that boot these servers might be newer, but most of them are as old as the computer itself.
A CHARON-based 3000 will have newer drives in it, because it's a modern Intel server with current-day storage devices. However, for the nearly-total majority of the 3000 system managers without a CHARON HPA/3000, the drives in their 3000s are spinning -- ever-quicker -- to that day when they fail to answer the bell.
Even after replacing a faulty 3000 drive — which is not expensive at today's prices — there are a few software steps to perform. And thus, our tale of the failed system (bootup) disk.
Our disk was a MEMBER in MPEXL_SYSTEM_VOLUME_SET. I am trying to delete the disk off the system. Upon startup of the machine is says that LDEV 4 is not available. When going into SYSGEN, then IO, then DDEV 4 it gives me a warning that it is part of the system volume set — cannot be deleted. I have done an INSTALL from tape (because some of the system files were on that device), which worked successfully. How do I get rid of this disk?
Gilles Schipper of GSA said that the INSTALL is something to watch while resetting 3000 system disks.
Sounds like the install did not leave you with only a single MPEXL_SYSTEM_VOLUME_SET disk. Could it be that you have more than one system volume after INSTALL because other, non-LDEV 1 volumes were added with the AVOL command of SYSGEN -- instead of the more traditional way of adding system volumes via the VOLUTIL utility?
You can check as follows:
SYSGEN
IO
LVOLIf the resulting output shows more than one volume, that's the answer.
Schipper offered a repair solution, as well.
1. Reboot with:
START NORECOVERY SINGLE-DISC SINGLE-USER
2. With SYSGEN, perform a DVOL for all non-LDEV1 volumes
3. HOLD, then KEEP CONFIG.SYS
4. Create a new System Load Tape (SLT)
5. Perform an INSTALL from the newly-created SLT
6. Add any non-LDEV1 system volumes with VOLUTIL. This will avoid such problems in future.
Those SLTs are also a crucial component to making serious backups of HP 3000s. VeSoft's Vladimir Volokh told us he saw a commonplace habit at one shop: Neglecting to read the advice they'd received.
"I don't know exactly what to do about my SLT," the manager told him. "HP built my first one using a CD. Do I need that CD?"
His answer was no, because HP was only using the most stable media to build that 3000's first SLT. But Vladimir had a question in reply. Do you read the NewsWire? "Yes, I get it in my email, and my mailbox," she said. But just like other tech resources, ours hadn't been consulted to advise on such procedures, even though we'd run an article about 10 days earlier that explained how to make CSLTs. That tape's rules are the same as SLT rules. Create one each time something changes in your configuration for your 3000.
Other managers figure they'd better be creating an SLT with every backup. Not needed, but there's one step that gets skipped in the process.
"I always say, 'Do and Check,' " Vladimir reports. The checking of your SLT for an error-free tape can be done with the 3000's included utilities. The venerable TELESUP account, which HP deployed to help its support engineers, has CHECKSLT for you to run and do the checking.
There's also the VSTORE command of MPE/iX to employ in 3000 checking. If your MPE references come from Google searches instead of reading your Newswire, you might find it a bit harder to locate HP's documentation for VSTORE. You won't find what you'd expect in a 7.5 manual. HP introduced VSTORE in MPE/iX 5.0, so that edition of the manual is where its details reside. (Thanks to Digital Innovations' HP MM Support website for its enduring MPE/iX manual archives).
It's also standard practice to include VSTORE in every backup job's command process.
There's another kind of manager who won't be doing SLTs. That's the one who knows how, but doesn't do the maintenance. You can't make this kind of administrator do their job, not any more than you can make a subscriber read an article. There's lots to be gained by learning skills that keep that 3000 stable and available, even in the event of a disk crash.