Mitel 3300 Rel 8.0 hard drive replacement 2

[Preston Hagar]

We have an old Mitel 3300 controller still running Rel 8.0. It has worked well for us for quite some time. Our original vendor was bought out by someone else and the parent company no longer offers support.

We recently had to reboot the system and after the reboot, started having several issues. Long story short, we had some DB issues among other things and I ended up deciding to shutdown the system and test out old IDE drive inside. The drive is over 10 years old and checking SMART data, has many bad sectors and will likely die soon.

I happened to buy a spare, identical 3300 a while back for spare parts just in case. The hard drive in it, while really old, has no bad sectors and tests out fine. I mounted both and found that they both had the same partition layout and seemed similar. I attempted an "easy hack" by just clearing off the data of the spare drive and copying over the data from partition to partition from our main, old drive to the spare. Everything seemed okay, but it didn't work. The controller booted and got it's normal IP, but my typical login was gone and the default system/password one was back.

I read through the tech manual and the typical procedure is to put the new drive in, load the 8.0 software from console, and then restore from backup. I have the backup file, but since I'm not a licensed Mitel tech, I don't have access to the software. I would try just imaging the old drive to the new, but I'm worried that will put too much strain on the old drive and finally just kill it for good.

Here are my questions:

Is there anyway I can do this without being a Mitel tech? Any secret partition or boot sector or anything I can try to copy from the old drive to the new to get the new one to work (short of a full image)?

Failing that, can a licensed Mitel tech even do this? It's my understanding that Mitel doesn't even support 8.0 anymore. If I can find someone with the proper credentials, would they even be able to access the old version of software and would Mitel even re-authorize our licenses on such an old system? Just want to try to find out before I start searching for vendors.

We're going to replace the system with a FreeSwitch system hopefully soon, but I'd like to get our current system as stable as possible to give me a bit more of a cushion to make the transition.

Thanks in advance!

 

[sarond]

Just because Mitel doesn't support it doesn't mean that you shouldn't be able to recover.

Yes you can still download old versions of the Software. A Mitel VAR can get this and install onto the replacement HDD.
The license is a hardware based serial number on an iButton in the system, it looks like a button cell battery.
This ties your licensing to your customer record in the Mitel License Servers (AMC). You will need your ARID (Application Record ID) to be able to retrieve your licensing. It doesn't matter that your version is old, it just mean you aren't entitled to any upgrades if you don't have Software Assurance so you are stuck at Rel 8.

Let's hope that your system is not licensed offline as it will mean you need someone that has access to your customer record on Mitel's AMC to be able to retrieve your password.

You could try this
If you have your ARID, install the Mitel Software at Rel 8.0, this is covered in the Tech Handbook I believe.
License the system by entering your ARID in the License form and retrieving from AMC.
Restore your backup.

 

[kwbMitel]

Re:The license is a hardware based serial number on an iButton in the system, it looks like a button cell battery.

Actually, the license is probably associated with a tiny cct board about 3cm by 2cm near the edge of the mother board.

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What's most important is that you realise ... There is no spoon.

 

[Preston Hagar]

Great, thanks! I'll start trying to reach out to some local Mitel vendors and see what they can do. Thanks for your help!

 

[TheMitelGuy]

Which country are you located in?

 

[kwbMitel]

If you click on a users details you can get a clue as to where they are.

It's not entirely accurate as it depends on where your internet connection resides.

Preston Hagar is in TX, US
TheMitelGuy is in ON, CA
kwbmitel is in AB, CA (Not BC, CA as shown)

**********************************************
What's most important is that you realise ... There is no spoon.

 

[Preston Hagar]

I'm in the US. I found a vendor that is going to setup Rel 8.0 on the other hard drive for us. Thanks all!

 

[VinceWhirlwind]

Could be a good time to go virtual instead.

Waaay more fun than trying to deal with those hardware 3300s.