Trying to install old SCO into Pentium 4 - can't get past N1 floppy
Jay Pennington
My client has an old PC running possibly the same SCO Unix version with a
custom program - they use
this program daily but the PC itself is dying.
My plan is to load my SCO Unix ver. 3.2.4s onto a new PC. I purchased a new
Dell Pentium 4 and partitioned the drive.
THE PROBLEM: I put in the N1 floppy and it boots properly, then it asks for
floppy N2 and "hit RETURN". As soon as I hit RETURN the PC reboots.
Therefore, I cannot get past loading just the first (N1) floppy in the
installation series.
I phoned Dell's tech support and they were no help - they only wanted to
help me reload Windows XP.
Anyone run into this before? Any suggestions?
Jay P.
JPenn...@satx.rr.com
Robert Side
> I have the full set of floppies for SCO Unix version 3.2.4s
> My client has an old PC running possibly the same SCO Unix version with a
> custom program - they use
> this program daily but the PC itself is dying.
> My plan is to load my SCO Unix ver. 3.2.4s onto a new PC. I purchased a new
> Dell Pentium 4 and partitioned the drive.
> THE PROBLEM: I put in the N1 floppy and it boots properly, then it asks for
> floppy N2 and "hit RETURN". As soon as I hit RETURN the PC reboots.
> Therefore, I cannot get past loading just the first (N1) floppy in the
> installation series.
Full set of floppies eh! Man, you are a sucker for punishment :-)
You have not correctly identified your OS version. Issue uname -X
You should see something like 3.2v4.x where x is 0, 1 or 2. If it
is anything less than 2 I believe you are completely out of luck.
Why don't you see if the custom program runs under 5.0.6. It probably
does. 5.0.6 solves are your hardware issues, Y2K issues and moves you
to a relatively modern OS.
If it doesn't, (I am assuming you have 3.2v4.2 and an IDE HD) move
the HD to a slow machine (P133 or slower). Using UOD429A as your boot
disk, install the base OS. Move the HD to the new machine and attempt
to boot. If it does, great, if it doesn't search deja because about
6 months ago someone else tried the same thing. I can't remember the
outcome.
Rob
Abid Khan
The problem is newer processor and mother board, Pentium 4 is too new
for Rel 3.2V4.X so you won't be able to install it, your choices are
either upgrade to the newer vesrion of SCO 5.0.6 OR get a Pentium II
machine (450 MHz or lower)
Search this group and you will find more threads on this subject.
Abid!
John Boland
>
> I have the full set of floppies for SCO Unix version 3.2.4s
This is a very old product that is no longer supported
but Caldera.
> My client has an old PC running possibly the same SCO Unix version with a
> custom program - they use
> this program daily but the PC itself is dying.
>
> My plan is to load my SCO Unix ver. 3.2.4s onto a new PC. I purchased a new
> Dell Pentium 4 and partitioned the drive.
It is likely that a Pentium 4 is going to be far to fast
for this old OS. The OS drivers use spin loops to
interact with devices like the disk and on a fast
system these spin loops will complete in to short
a time for the hardware.
> Anyone run into this before? Any suggestions?
Suggestions are either:
1) Try the N1 that comes with UOD429. For more details see:
http://stage.caldera.com/cgi-bin/ssl_reference?105136
2) Get an older, slower Pentium or 486 machine with a
disk that is not too new and install 3.2v4
3) Purchase an upgrade to SCO OpenServer 5 and install
that on the machine. (This assumes that the app
will run on OSR5. I see no reason why it should not).
John