Reloading OS/400 on 9402 mod. 200

Hello all,

I have saved an old type 9402 mod. 200 from destruction: I've found it
abandoned and semi-opened, full of dust and debris, in the building
that until five months ago housed a parcel company here where I live.
Processor model is 2030, there are 24 MB of RAM and 2 GB of DASD,
OS/400 is V3R1. I am a RPG programmer ad want to use it as a test
machine and to improve my skills.

Now it is in my room, clean and in working condition, but I need to
reload OS/400 because the one which is currently on disk was badly
damaged by previous owners: important parts of the system are missing,
many useful commands such as WRKACTJOB are no more present on the
system while others, for example PWRDWNSYS, sometimes hang with some
CPF. I've discovered that they used it as storage for old no more
useful data, saved only to fulfill law requirements, having another
machine for main operations, and as they needed more and more room for
their SAVFs, they deleted everything not useful to them (ASP was 97.8
% full when I recovered this system).

The question is: having V3R2 installation tapes, how could I reload
them into my system? My original idea was to IPL from tape and do
complete DASD initialization by choosing funtion 24 from control
panel, then do a fresh complete install of VLIC and OS/400 from tape,
but I was stopped by a colleague of mine telling me that FULIC tape
must be copied to disk and is necessary to complete the process on
CISC machines. Browsing lots of pages and asking lots of people for a
solution for this problem, I've read that FULIC tape is NOT needed to
reload OS/400 into machines with 2030 processor because those are
"base" systems where FULIC tape is not needed, being all the necessary
code inside VLIC, while for more powerful ones such as those mounting
2031 and 2032 processors, an additional FULIC tape is needed to
interface VLIC with extended processor functions. Is this true? This
is fundamental for me! I need to know if initializing disks will kill
my system or not! I cannot do an upgrade from V3R1 to V3R2 since the
latter VLIC is bigger than V3R1 one and will not fit on it's reserved
space. To increase VLIC reserved space in order to make room for
bigger V3R2 VLIC I have to load a pre-upgrade PTF which is impossibile
to obtain a copy of and, more of this, there is no more APYPTF command
on the system!

Looking for an answer to my FULIC question I've found another problem:
the system password (that's not QSECOFR one). It is not very clear
neither in IBM manuals in which cases a request to enter a new system
password will come up. They only say that "A new system password is
required for each model change or for conditions that indicate
probable change of ownership" (from SC41-3120-02) and my question is:
initializing disks or adding/changing a disk or tape drive is one of
those conditions that triggers the system password request? I've
joined a retrocomputing group and they could give me two more disks to
increase disk space and another tape unit for my system to be able to
use DUPTAP command, but I'm afraid of installing them...  would this
trigger on the password request?

Thank you very much for any answer you could give me and excuse me if
my english is not so clear: it is not my usual language! Sorry for the
long message!

G.
+---
| This is the Midrange System Mailing List!
| To submit a new message, send your mail to MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com.
| To subscribe to this list send email to MIDRANGE-L-SUB@midrange.com.
| To unsubscribe from this list send email to MIDRANGE-L-UNSUB@midrange.com.
| Questions should be directed to the list owner/operator: david@midrange.com
+---