xenix 2.3.2 install
Intrac Systems Inc
Hi,
I'm installing sco xenix 2.3.2 on a alr 386/220, with a ide controller
card and a LBAPro card from Unicore for the ide controller to find the
230mg drive. The origional bios did not support a drive this big, as
far as i can see. When booting from the N1 diskette i get the following
message
No Partition Sector! Drive may not be
partitioned!
I called the Unicore people and they said it was not them, and no
message appeared on a dos diskette that was booted. I even tried
multiple xenix N1 diskettes and same result.
I tried booting with No partitions on the hard drive and a dos partition
on the hard drive with the
same above error message.
Any help, comments, suggestions would be welcome!
Please do not suggest that i switch to sco5 and a newer computer, i
have already pitched this line to the powers to be and they were not
pleased. :-(
TIA
John Ingram
Bela Lubkin
John Ingram wrote:
> I'm installing sco xenix 2.3.2 on a alr 386/220, with a ide controller
> card and a LBAPro card from Unicore for the ide controller to find the
> 230mg drive. The origional bios did not support a drive this big, as
So there are *two* separate controller cards just to control one 230MB
hard disk?
The name "LBAPro" suggests that it will want to use LBA mode. Xenix has
no support for that. You need to stay within the bounds of 16 heads, 63
sectors/track, and 1024 cylinders. See if the BIOS or either of those
cards can be configured to present such parameters.
> far as i can see. When booting from the N1 diskette i get the following
> message
>
> No Partition Sector! Drive may not be
> partitioned!
Exactly when does that message appear? What are the last "normal"
messages before it?
>Bela<
--
Travelogue of our recent trip, http://www.armory.com/~alexia/trip/trip.html
Intrac Systems Inc
Bela Lubkin wrote:
> John Ingram wrote:
>
> > I'm installing sco xenix 2.3.2 on a alr 386/220, with a ide controller
> > card and a LBAPro card from Unicore for the ide controller to find the
> > 230mg drive. The origional bios did not support a drive this big, as
>
> So there are *two* separate controller cards just to control one 230MB
> hard disk?
>
card 1 is a standard ide controller cardcard 2 is a bios upgrade card called
LBAPro from unicore
> The name "LBAPro" suggests that it will want to use LBA mode. Xenix has
> no support for that. You need to stay within the bounds of 16 heads, 63
> sectors/track, and 1024 cylinders. See if the BIOS or either of those
> cards can be configured to present such parameters.
>
The LBA option is not activated according to the card at boot up.The ide hard
drive is 12 heads, 34 sectors/track and 1024 cylinders for 214mb .
There is nothing in the alr's original bios that will support this combination.
> > far as i can see. When booting from the N1 diskette i get the following
> > message
> >
> > No Partition Sector! Drive may not be
> > partitioned!
>
> Exactly when does that message appear? What are the last "normal"
> messages before it?
From the LBAPRO bios card
Press Control P to goto the partion Manager (some kind of fdisk utility)
Press Control A to boot from floppy (what i am using to boot
xenix from)
Press any key to boot from the hard disk.
Intrac Systems Inc
Thank you Bela for your reply.
We are abandoning this machine, and getting the customer buy a newer one.
Thank You
John Ingram
Bela Lubkin
John Ingram wrote:
> We are abandoning this machine, and getting the customer buy a newer one.
Good luck -- you'll be trading the current problem for a different one:
how to find a machine with old enough parts to work with Xenix at all.
> > > I'm installing sco xenix 2.3.2 on a alr 386/220, with a ide controller
> > > card and a LBAPro card from Unicore for the ide controller to find the
> > > 230mg drive. The origional bios did not support a drive this big, as
> >
> > So there are *two* separate controller cards just to control one 230MB
> > hard disk?
>
> card 1 is a standard ide controller cardcard 2 is a bios upgrade card called
> LBAPro from unicore
>
> > The name "LBAPro" suggests that it will want to use LBA mode. Xenix has
> > no support for that. You need to stay within the bounds of 16 heads, 63
> > sectors/track, and 1024 cylinders. See if the BIOS or either of those
> > cards can be configured to present such parameters.
>
> The LBA option is not activated according to the card at boot up.The ide hard
> drive is 12 heads, 34 sectors/track and 1024 cylinders for 214mb .
> There is nothing in the alr's original bios that will support this combination.
I think you could get this to work. Throw out the "LBAPro" card. Using
the original BIOS, set it to type 1 (should be something like 17
sectors/track, 4 heads, 300 cylinders). Actually, if you can find
anything with 34 sectors/track, any number of heads & cylinders, that
would be better.
The boot Xenix N1/N2, get into the install. I forget what the choices
were with Xenix, but somewhere along the way you should have options of
letting it do things "automatically" or you doing it "manually". Always
stick with the "manual" path. Somewhere along the way it will ask you
about disk parameters. Feed it the correct 34/12/1024 values. The
install should proceed successfully.
Jeff Liebermann
Bela Lubkin (be...@sco.com) wrote:
: I think you could get this to work. Throw out the "LBAPro" card. Using
: the original BIOS, set it to type 1 (should be something like 17
: sectors/track, 4 heads, 300 cylinders). Actually, if you can find
: anything with 34 sectors/track, any number of heads & cylinders, that
: would be better.
I'll assume Xenix 2.3.4.
As I recall from the days before all the new and wonderful
creative bios enhancements, all you had to do was select
a head/cyl/sec derrangement that worked out to LESS than
the actual disk size. I once did a Xenix system using bios
type=1 which was a 10MB drive. It sorta worked. However,
almost any drive configuration that is smaller than the
actual drive will work.
: The boot Xenix N1/N2, get into the install. I forget what the choices
: were with Xenix, but somewhere along the way you should have options of
: letting it do things "automatically" or you doing it "manually". Always
: stick with the "manual" path. Somewhere along the way it will ask you
: about disk parameters. Feed it the correct 34/12/1024 values. The
: install should proceed successfully.
Not quite. The cerimony goes something like:
1. Boot N1
2. Hit <Enter> at the boot: prompt.
3. Pick a keyboard type and turn OFF Num-Lock
4. Pick 1 for an MFM (IDE) controller type.
5. Hit "y" when it asks if you want to overscribble the hard disk.
6. Hit "2" to "Modify Current Disk Parameters"
This is where you type in the proper number of cyl/hds/sec.
What you are actually running is "dkinit".
Some of the values are rather obscure (Ecc, Control) so if
you don't know the answer, leave the number alone. For IDE,
set the Write Reduce, Write Precomp, and Landing Zone values
to equal the maximum number of cylinders.
7. When fdisk runs, hit "2" to use the whole enchilada for Xenix.
Make sure that it's the active partition (so that it boots).
8. Next, it will ask to run "badtrk". Have it "quick" scan
the whole drive to eliminate a bug even though IDE drives are
allegedly perfect. On some configurations, the very last
block is found to be bad during the scan. I dunno why or care
much why, but simply disallocate it and move on to bigger
challenges. Might as well make it a destructo scan.
9. Next, it will ask you if you want a /u filesystem.
Find a coin. Heads to make a /u filesystem, tails to make
it all one big root filesystem. Let's pretend you want a
/u filesystem. Answer "y".
10. Next, it will ask if you want to make any manual adjustments
or "block-by-block control". Say "y" because the Xenix install
does a MISERABLE job of sizing the swap and /u filesystem.
The program being run is "divvy". This is where I earn my
money during the Xenix install. Change the filesystem sizes
to sane values. Be prepared to use a calculator. Swap should
be about the same size as the ram or 16MB. The root filesystem
should be at least 40MB (preferably much more) to handle
applications. Eventually, it will run mkfs.
11. It will ask for your serial number and activation key.
12. Then, it will reboot. Hit <Enter> at the boot: prompt.
13. You will be asked for various additional floppies, passwords,
and TZ info.
14. You will be given the choice of stopping the install or
continuing. Stop does NOT mean abort. Select "2" to continue.
15. You will be running "custom" which is SCO's install program.
Select "1" to install the rest of the operating system. You
will be prompted for additional floppies and possibly the
serial number and activation keys again. When finished, it
will reboot.
16. At the boot: prompt, hit <Enter> and give it the root
password to go into single user mode. Then run:
mkdev fs /dev/u /u
to create the device nodes and mount table for the /u filesystem.
17. Run:
fsck /dev/u
to clean the /u filesystem.
18. Reboot with:
shutdown -g0 -y
or if you're in a hurry:
sync
sync
sync
haltsys
19. At the boot prompt, either do nothing (and it will boot
to multiuser by itself), hit <Enter>, or type:
boot: xenix auto
to do the equivalent of an automatic selfboot to multiuser.
Use the <Enter> method to eventually go to single user for
additional package installation.
--
# Jeff Liebermann Liebermann Design 150 Felker St #D Santa Cruz CA 95060
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