SBS 6.0 Kaboom after SP3e

[dsz...@chartermi.net]

I'm haveing a MAJOR problem applying SP3e to my new SBS 6.0 server. I'm
new to NetWare 6 as my day job company is still on 4.12. However, since
I'm starting my own business, I choose the best NOS on the planet. I
ordered the Netware 6.x administrators guide from Novell Press and it
looks like I have some reading to do. Anyway...

I can sucessfully install SBS on my server, which is a home brew 700Mhz
Athlon with 640 Meg of memory, a pair of 8 Gig IDE drives for the sys:
volume and an Adaptec 2100s Raid controller for additional volumes, plus
a Seagate 4mm DAT tape drive. The problem I'm having is after SP3e is
applied, the server goes NUTS, refusing to load any NLM's after the
startup.ncf. I get NLM module error messages non-stop until I end up at a
colon prompt. At this point my only choice is to completly reinstall as I
don't have the foggest idea what to do.

H E L P !!!!!

Daniel Szalay
Audio Espresso Digital Recording

[Barry Schnur]

Daniel, what SCSI controller are you using for the DAT drive?

Did this server start its life as something other that NW 6?

There are a limited number of caveats for SP3 generally (and none that I
know of that are specific to SBS 6.0).

--
Barry Schnur
Novell Support Connection Volunteer Sysop

[dsz...@chartermi.net]

> Daniel, what SCSI controller are you using for the DAT drive? <

The SCSI controller is an Adaptec 2940

> Did this server start its life as something other that NW 6? <

This is a new install, with the HD's having been wiped clean and Netware
installed as a new server.

[Keith Larson]

does it abend on bootup?

 

I had a very similar thing happen at loadstage 1 when usb drivers load.  I had to renamed c:\nwserver\ohcidrv.nlm to *.old and then the server booted up fine.

 

[dsz...@chartermi.net]

> does it abend on bootup? <

No Abends, it just will not load any NLM's.

[Barry Schnur]

> The SCSI controller is an Adaptec 2940
>

Not sure if this is directly related, but the drivers that SP3 installs for
many of the adaptec controllers are severely not good. Instead, you need
to use the drivers you can locate via \tools\unsupdrv in the SP3 extract.

Could you post your startup.ncf file? Perhaps we can tweak things there so
that the system can actually start.

[Keith Larson]

it has to be the disk driver then.

[dsz...@chartermi.net]

Thanks to everyone for the help. I guess I'll create a stripped down
startup.ncf and autoexec.ncf and narrow it down untill I find the mis-
behaving NLM.

Stay tuned...

[Barry Schnur]

> Thanks to everyone for the help. I guess I'll create a stripped down
> startup.ncf and autoexec.ncf and narrow it down untill I find the mis-
> behaving NLM.

OK
>
> Stay tuned...

We will for sure.

[dsz...@chartermi.net]

Ok, I commented everything out of the startup.ncf except for the two
IDEATA.HAM lines. I restarted the server using the -na switch and saw a
series of errors fly by (too fast for me to catch) stating a module (???)
did not release resources. After bootup completed, I looked at the logger
screen and found the following...

LibC-6.0-I0A: LibC cannot load essential unicode translation tables from
the NLS subdirectory where server.exe is installed.

Module USBIO.NLM cannot be loaded until LibC is loaded.

Any ideas?

[dsz...@chartermi.net]

I tried increasing the Files and Buffers settings (in the config.sys) to
150 and 100. Still no change; LibC will not load.

[Barry Schnur]

Hmm, perhaps extracting the SP3 (or for that matter SP2) update files to a
workstation, then copying over the files from Startup and Startup\NLS --
pulling at straws here.

[dsz...@chartermi.net]

What are you thinking is wrong?

[Barry Schnur]

Well,, if it isn't a storage driver issue, I'm thinking something didn't
get copied over correctly for Libc support based on what you encountered.

[dsz...@chartermi.net]

OK, here's what I've done...

First, I replaced DRDOS with Good ol’ MSDOS 6.22. For some reason I could
not view the C:\NWSERVER\NLS directory. Rather that fart around with
something I’m not comfortable with, replacing it returned full control to
me; I can now see the files. I don’t know what happened, but that problem
is resolved. Next…

All of the files seem to be correctly copied. I did a file-by-file
comparison and found the size and dates match what’s in the update. So I
blew the NetWare install away and re-installed, applied NW6SP2 and
everything worked correctly. As soon as I applied NW6SP3 the problems
appeared. Now the server just abends during the stage 2 loading of NLM’s.

So apparently there is something in this update, my server doesn’t like.
It’s a Shuttle motherboard with an AMD 700Mhz Athlon processor. I don’t
see anyone else reporting this problem, so it must be unique to me. Maybe
I need to try a different motherboard…

[dsz...@chartermi.net]

After MANY installs of SBS I finally found the problem:

The sp3 IDE drivers are EVIL!

I swapped the MB which for the first time gave me a consistant error; the
sys: volume would dismount during stage 4 with an IO error stating there
was bad data on the drive, possably a bad disk. This would occure with
SP2 and SP3. I knew this could not be true as the HD's are new. I re-
installed SBS, then applied SP3 "without" updating the storage drivers
and the server booted completly with no errors. I have not installed any
applications yet (BackupExec FAX softwate etc.), but at least the box is
not crashing during boot-up anymore.

Someone mentioned (early in the thread) that is "must be the drivers",
but did I listen? NOOOOOOOO!

[Tim Heywood (NSC Sysop)]

:-)

Different IDE systems react differently to different versions of IDEATA.HAM If
you go to http://developer.novell.com/devres/storage/drivers/index.html you will
find the very latest versions which seem considerably improved over earlier
versions. Also remember to increase the files= in the config.sys to files=100
for maximum speed during dos partition access.

Tim

No Direct e-Mail Please!
--
****************
Tim Heywood
Independent Consultant
Scotland
(God's Country)
Novell Support Connection SYSOP
****************

In theory, practice and theory are the same,
In practice they are different!

[dsz...@chartermi.net]

Well, I applied the latest versions of IDEATA.HAM and DDI and during
stage 5 I received a "Redirected Block" message. When I returned to the
origional versions, it booted clean again.

I think it's time to leave well enough alone...

[Massimo Rosen]

HI,

I would suspect your server has severe hardware problems when your IDE
drives are accessed in DMA mode. I suspect the old driver *seems* to
work, as it probably doesn't support your IDE chip in DMA yet and uses
the slow PIO mode, and the newer drivers do support DMA, thus fail.

CU,
--
Massimo Rosen
Novell Support Connection Sysop
No emails please!
http://www.cfc-it.de

[Barry Schnur]

OK -- sorry about the delay in response -- I was out of town until this
evening.

Again, just checking (this might be a request loop but I have been on a
plane for 12 hours today), IDE drives in the mix? With that motherboard, I
am guessing VIA chip set for any IDE device.

[dsz...@chartermi.net]

Maybe it's the drives themselves. I'm using a couple of 8 Gig
Seagate "Bigfoot" Drives. They have never been used, as I purchased them
from "new old stock", still sealed in the origional packaging (22 bucks
each, what a bargan!). Perhaps I need to try a newer drive like a WD200?

[Barry Schnur]

Bigfoot drives were from Maxtor, not Seagate...

[Massimo Rosen]

Hi,

8GB drives were state of the art when DMA modes emerged. It's well
possible that they have a problem with it. BTW, Bigfoots are Quantum
(now Maxtor) drives, not Seagate.

CU,
--
Massimo Rosen
Novell Product Support Forum Sysop

[Ken Wilkins]

Hey, just saw the postings. I"ve had similar problems, SBS6.0, SPACK3.

After installing and doing some research/dinking, here's what I came up
with. Still wanna know why.

XFX mb 1.3 AMD Duron, I don't know the ide chipset. After SPACK3 install,
reboot boots server to : prompt. IDECD and IDEHD load okay, but IDEATA
has to be loaded several seconds after those, or it doesn't load at all.
Manual loading after the server comes up, it loads. but in the startup.ncf,
it doesn't (error says 'unresolved').. Putting a pause after the first two,
then hitting a key to continue and loading IDEATA, it works.

Manually loading IDEATA, it loads, manually "mount all", the volumes come
up. manual "load autoexec.ncf" it does okay.
SO, I limp it up and uninstall the SPACK3 (nwconfig, products, del).

I tried putting on nw6nss3c.exe, but it didn't help. Yes, the vols are NSS,
as per 'standard install'.

Any ideas? I read these related posts and doesn't look very helpful. I
think it's the drivers. I put the old ones in
(from BACKSP3 dir) and it doesn't help until I do a full backrev.

Ken

[Barry Schnur]

Ken, did you download the later IDEATA drivers -- that is a separate
download.

[Ken Wilkins]

Yep. 11-xx-03, right? Don't remember the date.
Ken

[Barry Schnur]

Correct -- 11-20-03 -- version 4.11

[dsz...@chartermi.net]

Well after dinking around and getting crappy results, I bit the bullet a
purchased a FULLY VALIDATED (for NetWare) Intel server board. Guess what?

NO MORE PROBLEMS!!!!

I'm currently running SP4 with no issues or problems. Funny how that
works huh? (duh)

My thanks to everyone who offered their help.

[Barry Schnur]

Interesting -- I've not run into much in the way of problems with NW 6 SP3
or NW 6.5 SP1a using 'clone' boards -- but not using the IDE drivers (for
6.5 I tested with an Adaptec 2940U2W and am currently testing with a
Promise RAID TX100).

[dsz...@chartermi.net]

The aggravating part is it worked just fine with Winnt 4.0 (@#$%&).

[Barry Schnur]

> The aggravating part is it worked just fine with Winnt 4.0 (@#$%&).
>

Right, but times and operating systems changed.

Besides, if I applied the NW6SP3 update to Winnt, I'd expect it to be
unhappy <g,d,r>