Tek-Tips is the largest IT community on the Internet today!

Members share and learn making Tek-Tips Forums the best source of peer-reviewed technical information on the Internet!

Register Log in
  • Congratulations Chris Miller on being selected by the Tek-Tips community for having the most helpful posts in the forums last week. Way to Go!

3.2v4.2

Status
Not open for further replies.
Klo

Klo

Technical User
Aug 28, 2002
86
US
I have a client who has a Gateway 2000 P5-100XL as his server running Sco Unix System V/386 Release 3.2v4.2 and Medical Manager 8.12 with 4 terminals.
He wants to upgrade his server because he is worried about reliability but wants to keep all his software as it is. His hard drive is 463 MB and is about 86% used. This is a very small office and money is a big factor.I am not very familar with 3.2v4.2 but have read that it dosen't like hard drives over 1GB. I'm having a hard time finding information concerning hardware compatibility. So far I know that Lone Tar will work and there are drivers available for the Adaptec 2960. I plan on installing these along with a Seagate DDS3 drive. Any suggestions or ideas where I might find more info on hardware?
Thanks, Mike
 
Sort by date Sort by votes
I support more 4.2 than anyting else of SCO. Boot insistes on <1024 cylinders so I use little SCSI for boot and mount data drives within the filesystem. 500mb for boot and 1gb for data and since my systems use 525 wangteks for backup I fight to keep the data under 500 and backup data only using backupedge.
The medical package I was supporting used 150mb tape drives and compressed its own data for backup so I could use a 500mb for everything.
But finding <1gb SCSI is getting harder. So when I find it I stockpile it.
You may also want to make sure that your customer has the install stuff and patches because it is getting harder to find also.

Ed Fair
Any advice I give is my best judgement based on my interpretation of the facts you supply. Help increase my knowledge by providing some feedback, good or bad, on any advice I have given.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Hi Ed,
I don't think he has any of the actual software. When he got his system Medical Manager used 'fly by night' independents who installed and flew ..... without leaving any software. How hard is it to upgrade to 5.06? Where can I find info on how to do that?
Thanks
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
My upgrades have been full installs followed by program and data migration and nothing over 5.0.5 at this time. So I am not the one to ask.
Hate them fly-by-nights. No operating system install stuff and no patches either, I bet.
Time for you to prevail on this customer that he needs to get some backup running, and at the price of hardware probably wouldn't hurt to have a total duplicate machine where one night's backup could be restored on the second machine the next day. Never more that one day's work behind and at risk. One of my customers used the backup machine for batch printing the next day to offload some of the work that would have otherwise dragged the primary machine down.

Ed Fair
Any advice I give is my best judgement based on my interpretation of the facts you supply. Help increase my knowledge by providing some feedback, good or bad, on any advice I have given.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Hi Ed,
I have 5.06 installed on a machine at my office that I use to experiment with. I'm forever screwing something up (learning!). I have a IDE Traven drive and Lone Tar installed. If (when) something goes wrong that I can't fix I just use the two Air Bag disks I made and the Master (plus the Incrimental)tape and am back in business. Even with slow IDE drive it only takes about 1.5 hrs for a complete restore. At one clinic I take care of I built them a really nice (and fast) server with 5.06 and Medical Manager with a seagate DDS3 drive. Master backups take about 25 minutes on that one and they have a lot of data. No software is perfect but my own machine made me a believer in quality backups.
The problem with this new situation is the requirement to keep 3.2v4.2 and the lack of info on what hardware will work with it (as well as my lack of experirnce with it). The idea of using two hard drives, one for the OS and the other for data sounds interesting. Is there a restriction on the size of the data drive? Could I use a scsi drive for the OS and a scsi raid 1 for the data. Most of the servers I build I use scsi 1 for redundancy.
Your thoughts?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Never have tried raid with 4.2 so can't comment.
Think there was a size limitation on 4.2 but since I'm on the bottom to start with I have no chance of hitting it.
I've avoided the travan stuff from the beginning. All the little tapes I've dealt with were ticking time bombs. At least when I throw the QIC when I get mad it dents something. Actually kidding , the most I do is mumble under my breath.
And all my stuff is SCSI. Well, except for a xenix partition on one of my IDE drives where I duplicate floppies for patches.

Ed Fair
Any advice I give is my best judgement based on my interpretation of the facts you supply. Help increase my knowledge by providing some feedback, good or bad, on any advice I have given.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
3.2V4.2 does support more than 2GB.
4.2 has a limit of 2GB per Filesystem, which means you can have up to 14 GB in one single partition.

The only limit is that the boot partition must fall completely within the first 1024 cilinders.

I had loads of 4 to 10 GB HD with 4.2, so just get one of thoses along with the installation media and install it on a new machine.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
The client dosen't have the installation media. Do you know where I can get it?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
You will need to contact software houses in your area/country, and you will also need to get the license information from your customer. If he does not have it then that may be a problem, but using the serial number from the OS, and with the original invoice it may be possible that SCO supply a new license

 
Upvote 0 Downvote
I can supply, but there are some legalities and details that are best handled off thread.
Try unixstuff@bellsouth.net
Or a SCO supplier , they may still have some.
Or e-bay, where it shows up regularly.

Ed Fair
Any advice I give is my best judgement based on my interpretation of the facts you supply. Help increase my knowledge by providing some feedback, good or bad, on any advice I have given.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Also ... a question to you gurus out there .... if you were going to build a reliable server (5 users) with the restriction of having to use Unix 3.2v4.2 what would you recommend for a processor/motherboard, scsi or ide, etc. I may have to use this version but am having a hard time finding info on hardware. SCO has some info on their website but it is very dated.
Thanks
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Just about any used pentium M/B, AT form factor. But for price get one with SDRAM support. Any low end VGA. SCSI. And digi 8e.
What you are asking for is all obsolete in the marketplace. So buy it used and build 2 or 3 for the price of one.




Ed Fair
Any advice I give is my best judgement based on my interpretation of the facts you supply. Help increase my knowledge by providing some feedback, good or bad, on any advice I have given.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
And most important of all you can NOT use a P4 with it so you'r e somewhat restricted.

Any particular reason why it will not run on 5.05/6/7 ?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Dear Mike,
I read your thread. Some advise regarding 3.2V4.2. SCO
no longer support this version. You can get an upgrade to
newer version 5.07 five user from an older version. 5.07
will support Pentium 4 and DDR rams, and youwill not need
a patch for Y2K. I suggest Acer server which used to be
Altos server and they have a longstanding relationship
with Medical Manager and new computers are less expensive.
I have a couple of clients on medical manager V.8.12
running on Acer servers. I suggest only SCSI drives for
the server for the Medical Offices as data safety and zero
down time is of prime important.
Hope that this will help.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
I feel comfortable with SCO 5.06 and would have no problem building a server to handle it. The problem is transfering MM 8.12 to the new server. I don't know enough about MM to do that. My experiences with MM have not been good so I don't think I can get the tech support to do the job. The best I have gotten from them concerning this problem is to upgrade to the newest version of Unix and the newest MM for about $15000. This is WAY out of the price range my client can afford. He is quite happy with the capabilities of his present system (except for the backups, almost full HD and the worries of having a 10 year old server). Are your servers running 5.07 and MM 8.12?
I like the early Altos server motherboards. I have a new AcerAltos 9000 Pro that I have been gathering parts for just to play with. It would be a great mb for this clinic except that it has dual Pentium Pros and I don't know where I would get a license for dual processors for 3.2v4.2 ( I assume it would need one?)
I called the Bluechip people to get a price on an upgrade to 5.02. I understood from my research that an upgrade was available at one time (rather than a fresh install). Bluechip informed me that there was no such thing as an upgrade. The light at the end of the tunnel is getting dimmer.
Mike
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
No to the dual processor.
Altos was good. Had one xenix that shutdown twice in 10 years, the second to take it out.
The upgrade to 5.0.2 5 user was a price break for established users, saved about 33% if I recall. You can still run across them on ebay.
The almost full hard drive is resolvable. Probably would make airbags, then pull the hard drive and install another, or 2, then restore. Probably a 3 to 4 hour job.

Ed Fair
Any advice I give is my best judgement based on my interpretation of the facts you supply. Help increase my knowledge by providing some feedback, good or bad, on any advice I have given.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Dear Mike,
Your SCO 3.2 V 4.2 will run on any machine 386,486,Pentium,or Pro. One of my client had Medical Manager
running on intel 386/66 Mhz with eight terminal and three
printers without any problem for ten years.Their hard drive
crashed and they bought a new Acer 300 server with P-II
350 Mhz.
Regarding Medical Manager support, If you are in U.S.,
Try this company in Dallas. They are ex medical manager
people and are great for support without having to mortgage
your house to pay for the support.
The company name is Final Support and owner is Kirk who
is a very nice guy.
If you need boot floppies for the server, I may be able to make a copy for you.
Cheers.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

edfair
  • Locked
  • Question
Rebuilding the superblock 3.2v4.2
Replies
2
Views
69
edfair
edfair
EddieN1
  • Locked
  • Question
SCO 3.2v4.2 C Compiler 1
Replies
1
Views
53
Annihilannic
Annihilannic
pfilippone
  • Locked
  • Question
Tuning STREAMS in 3.2v4.2
Replies
3
Views
66
pfilippone
pfilippone
SoTexPal
  • Locked
  • Question
Digiboard config on SCO 3.2v4.2
Replies
9
Views
92
PHV
PHV
kzinti
  • Locked
  • Question
System V 3.2v4.2 Boot Problem
Replies
3
Views
38
edfair
edfair

Part and Inventory Search

Sponsor

Back
Top