RE: AS/400e 170 IPL failure -- MIDRANGE-L

IBM i will mark a drive read only if the ASP is lost and it does not know
how the drive fits into the system. IBM i knows there is data on the drive
but cannot read it, so it marks it read only to avoid destroying data. In
the end however formatting the drive is really the only option.

--
Jim Oberholtzer
Agile Technology Architects

-----Original Message-----
From: MIDRANGE-L [mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of
Robert
Sent: Saturday, October 01, 2016 6:11 PM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Subject: Re: AS/400e 170 IPL failure

Jim - Thanks for explaining the "H". I wonder why a parity set would be read
only?

Jack - You're right, it is fun. I've never touched an i machine before and
I'm enjoying playing with them. A friend thinks he might have some tapes, so
if he can find them I'll try to do a backup of the one that IPLs. With that
in hand, I could try reinstalling V5R2 to get some useful privileges. Though
I might try mounting a drive on a Linux box first, to see what I might see.
I think I've found the thread that Roberto mentioned - I could maybe muddle
through on the expertise, but the time might be an issue.

As for the other one, I think I'll have a look at the Recover disk unit
functionality in the DST (nothing to lose!). After that, it's probably a
matter of pulling drives, then reinitializing two or more as a RAID 1 or
Mirrored set and doing an install. At the very least, that would let me test
components of the system to figure out which might be useful spares and
which to discard.

OT, these went on the back burner today, while I liberated most of a pdp
11/73 from an industrial controller. Too many projects, too little time -
and that's not counting the fact that I still need to make a living.

--
Robert

On Sat, Oct 1, 2016 at 4:18 PM, Jack Tucky <jacktucky@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

I think what you are doing sounds like fun. Not sure why people keep

saying to chuck it.

Once when I was really done with a system , I let my 9 year old have at

it with a whole set of tools. Then we got the saws, then the hammers.

You may be at that point but this thread is interesting.

On Oct 1, 2016, at 9:22 AM, Jim Oberholtzer <midrangel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

wrote:

No license keys in DST, they exist in IBM i .

The load source drive may work enough to get you to DST, but Larry's

right

the box is toast. The "H" in the DPH001 drive name indicates read only,
only one way to fix that and that is to reinitialize the drive. RAID
set is gone, the box is an interesting relic, and that's about it.

Call "Got Junk" Your wasting time if you don't have media and/or Keys.

--
Jim Oberholtzer
Agile Technology Architects

-----Original Message-----
From: MIDRANGE-L [mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf
Of Robert
Sent: Friday, September 30, 2016 11:27 AM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Subject: Re: AS/400e 170 IPL failure

But possibly not zero after all. As I had nothing to lose, I stopped
Parity Set 1 and tried a B M IPL. It gave me a disk error warning (I
wrote down the details in case I might need them later) and allowed
me into DST - as QSECOFR, no less!

Display Disk Configuration Status told me that ASP1 was unprotected,
Disk Unit 1 was configured (the serial # matched one of the drives in
Parity Set
1) and Disk Unit 3 (not a s/n from PS1 was missing).

I reset the system password while I was in there and asked it to
IPL.It sat for a while, then put me back in DST, showing C600450A on the

control panel.

So, that's progress of a sort. I'm further along than I was before,
at least.

Now, is there any way of retrieving the license keys from the DST, or
does it have to complete an IPL before it can see them?

--
Robert

On Thu, Sep 29, 2016 at 7:41 PM, DrFranken <midrange@xxxxxxxxxxxx>

wrote:

In this case minuscule is indeed approaching zero. :-(

With IBM i and it's predecessors RAID 1 is referred to as Mirroring.
So because he is seeing RAID sets it's RAID 5. (Recall RAID 6 showed
up with MUCH newer hardware than this old 170!) With Mirroring the
drives on their own appear unprotected but the ASP itself is flagged
Mirrored. There will also be two drives #1 and two #2 etc.

I honestly think the previous owner pulled a couple drives as spares
or to repair another machine and the system ASP is a gonner.

- Larry "DrFranken" Bolhuis

www.Frankeni.com
www.iDevCloud.com - Personal Development IBM i timeshare service.
www.iInTheCloud.com - Commercial IBM i Cloud Hosting.

On 9/29/2016 8:21 PM, Robert wrote:

You are, of course, correct. I was misremembering how RAID 5 worked.
Two dead drives and it's shot. Degraded has often panned out well
for me, but if this is RAID 5 it's beyond degraded.

The only faint hope that is left is that while I'm assuming that
it's using RAID5, I don't know how to verify that. So there's a
miniscule chance that it's using mirroring (or RAID 1) instead.
Said chance is likely vanishingly small, however.

The work with disks functionality is very limited, when you D IPL
to the DST, so I'm not sure how to look into that.

--
This is the Midrange Systems Technical Discussion (MIDRANGE-L)
mailing list To post a message email: MIDRANGE-L@xxxxxxxxxxxx To
subscribe, unsubscribe, or change list options,
visit: http://lists.midrange.com/mailman/listinfo/midrange-l
or email: MIDRANGE-L-request@xxxxxxxxxxxx Before posting, please
take a moment to review the archives at
http://archive.midrange.com/midrange-l.

Please contact support@xxxxxxxxxxxx for any subscription related

questions.
--
This is the Midrange Systems Technical Discussion (MIDRANGE-L)
mailing list To post a message email: MIDRANGE-L@xxxxxxxxxxxx To
subscribe, unsubscribe, or change list options,
visit: http://lists.midrange.com/mailman/listinfo/midrange-l
or email: MIDRANGE-L-request@xxxxxxxxxxxx Before posting, please take
a moment to review the archives at

http://archive.midrange.com/midrange-l.

Please contact support@xxxxxxxxxxxx for any subscription related

questions.

--
This is the Midrange Systems Technical Discussion (MIDRANGE-L)
mailing list To post a message email: MIDRANGE-L@xxxxxxxxxxxx To
subscribe, unsubscribe, or change list options,
visit: http://lists.midrange.com/mailman/listinfo/midrange-l
or email: MIDRANGE-L-request@xxxxxxxxxxxx Before posting, please take
a moment to review the archives at
http://archive.midrange.com/midrange-l.

Please contact support@xxxxxxxxxxxx for any subscription related

questions.

--
This is the Midrange Systems Technical Discussion (MIDRANGE-L) mailing
list To post a message email: MIDRANGE-L@xxxxxxxxxxxx To subscribe,
unsubscribe, or change list options,
visit: http://lists.midrange.com/mailman/listinfo/midrange-l
or email: MIDRANGE-L-request@xxxxxxxxxxxx Before posting, please take
a moment to review the archives at
http://archive.midrange.com/midrange-l.

Please contact support@xxxxxxxxxxxx for any subscription related

questions.
--
This is the Midrange Systems Technical Discussion (MIDRANGE-L) mailing list
To post a message email: MIDRANGE-L@xxxxxxxxxxxx To subscribe, unsubscribe,
or change list options,
visit: http://lists.midrange.com/mailman/listinfo/midrange-l
or email: MIDRANGE-L-request@xxxxxxxxxxxx Before posting, please take a
moment to review the archives at http://archive.midrange.com/midrange-l.

Please contact support@xxxxxxxxxxxx for any subscription related questions.