HELP! IPL taking DAYS, but appears to be normal...

["Shea, David" <DShea@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

My Tale of Woe...

On Tuesday Jan 27, my 170 running v5r1 locked up.  Processor light solid, no
response to PING, couldn't get a telnet session running, console wouldn't
come up.

Powered off the machine.  Unfortunately I was out of the office, so I was
walking a non-technical person through pushing the buttons on the panel.
The option to 'start IPL' didn't come up on the panel.  So, we killed the
power.

Upon restarting, the machine was at C900 2C40 for over 24 hours.  This step
is called 

        Work Control Block Table clean up

I forced a manual IPL from the B side.  The console came up.  I told it to
clear jobqs, incomplete jobs, outq, and to only start the console.

It's not been sitting at C900 29A0 for almost 48 hours.  This step is called

        Prepare the system control block structure

Both of these steps seem to be chewing on the Work Control Table and seem to
have something to do with the jobs in the system.

If I had to guess (and it's only a guess) I'd say the something submitted a
gazillion jobs to the system and it's freaking out trying to clean up the
mess.

I'm still at C900 29A0.  The processor light is blinking and it appears to
be working on something.  No SRC codes.

Here's my dilemma.

Do I just let it continue with the IPL and pray that it finishes or do I
take alternative action:

        1.      RE-IPL from the A side?
        2.      IPL from tape?
        3.      Re-install the OS?

If I re-install the OS, will the user libraries remain intact?  Will the
USRPRFs remain intact?

HELP!!!

Thanks.

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