Booting an HP VECTRA VE5

[clegge]

Hello, I have an HP Vectra VE5 that only boots to the BOOT: prompt.
I can't seem to boot past this and have no System Admin. documentation on hand. We had to shut it down for maintenance and possibly it wasn't shut down completely before power down. Anyone have experience with this problem. I checked the bios which seems ok and can see the hard drive OK. ANy help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks, Charles.

 

[Hemo]

Well, getting as far as 'boot:' could be considered good news. It means the boot sector is still intact. What happens after you press the enter key at this point?

Everything (keyboard, mouse, etc) plugged in, right?

The exact wording of any messages you might get can be important to determine what may need to be done.

 

[edfair]

Usual problem is corruption or loss of the kernel from the hard drive.
One fix would be to boot from emergency floppy and copy the floppy version across.
Another would be to boot from an older version. You could try unix.old or unix.org.
And there are other issues, the solution to which will depend on what you are running. If autoboot isn't set the keyboard or keyboard circuitry is suspect.

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.

 

[clegge]

Thanks for all the answers. In deed, we ended up booting off of another floppy. We had to run FSCK on the drive but fortunately the file systems remained in tact.
All the responses are GREATLY appreciated. I have no training on SCO UNIX so you
can imagine the level of anxiety and frsutration.

Thanks and Regards, Charles.