Big problems with sys volume

[isthisthingon]

Ok here it goes. I inherited this thing we'll call a Netware 4.11 server. It has 3 disks mounted to 2 volumes, a sys and an apl. One of the drives mounted as half of the sys volume keeps crashing. Once this crashes, I can take out the drive, boot to the other half of the volume, put the drive back in, do a warm reboot and everything is on track. Can anyone tell me the quickest and easiest way to get this drive replaced? I do have current tape backups using ARCserve and am somewhat Netware literate but please go easy on me I was thinking of booting to the half of the drive that is good, mounting a new fresh drive with the same partitions as additional space to the sys volume then restoring the entire sys volume from tape. Would that work? Would I have to backup the NDS us dsmaint first? Any help is appreciated.

Mike

 

[marvhuffaker]

So are you saying that SYS is mirrored onto 2 drives? And APL is not mirrored? It's on a lone drive?

You lost me with the crash, swap, back in, and reboot part.

Marvin Huffaker, MCNE

http://www.redjuju.com

 

[isthisthingon]

Thanks for the reply.

I inherited this mess so I can tell you what I see. The sys volume spans two 9.1 gb drives and has a totla amount of storage of 18gb's. The apl volume is a lone 9.1 gb drive. This is puzzling to me too .. .. hopefully the MCNE in you can make some sense of this.

 

[marvhuffaker]

If you take the bad drive out, your SYS volume will be destroyed. You can't just replace it, it doesn't work that way. You also can't span it to a 3rd drive and then take the 2nd out. You can never remove a drive from a span to reduce the size, the volume will be destroyed.

Ideally, SYS should be a max of 4GB, not spanned. Only system files should be on SYS, but I'm guessing you must have a lot of application and user files there too.

This is a complex topic to try to explain, and there are numerous potential outcomes.. But you're going to have a difficult time working with the existing drives.

You might use Partition Magic or Portlock Storage Manager to copy the SYS volume to a single larger drive. I wouldn't try to reduce the current volume size considering the state of the drives.

Look at this other thread and see if it gives you any ideas..

http://www.tek-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=1061768&page=1

Marvin Huffaker, MCNE

http://www.redjuju.com

 

[MarkhP]

...One of the drives mounted as half of the sys volume keeps crashing. Once this crashes, I can take out the drive, boot to the other half of the volume, put the drive back in, do a warm reboot and everything is on track..."

If the SYS volume was spanned across two disks and one failed, wouldn't the volume failt to mount at all?.

Isthisthingon, are you sure that these are spanned and not mirrored?.

 

[isthisthingon]

Yes, I am sure none of the three drives are mirrored. I am thinking the best bet would be a new box with a fresh install since I do have current tape backups and only about 60 users.

 

[MarkhP]

No offence intended. Just wanted to confirm. It just sounded like a very odd setup that you've taken on there. At least you now have the chance to rebuild the server as you want it (maybe a blessing?). Good luck with the restore.

 

[isthisthingon]

No offense taken .. .. I dont know about a blessing, I have too many other things on my plate here, this thing is just a headache from top to bottom. But I suppose if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself. I am trying to install 4.11 on a new box, once it gets to the part right before it creates the volume it says cdrom.nlm will not load and control was transferred to the console. What is this all about? Thanks for all the input.