Novell 4.11 server in continuous boot

[HARTNETT]

I have a gateway 2000, Celeron 300MHZ server that will not boot up. It has two 4GB IDE Drives that are (were) mirrored.
We had a power outage last night, but the server has an UPS with software that should have gracefully downed the server.
Every time we start the server, it reboots when the message "Loading Console" appeears. It continuously reboots until we stop the autoexec.bat.
We booted the server with the -NA & -NS switches, with the same results.
Any ideas.

 

[TheBoySmith]

Sounds like corruption to one of the boot files. Have you got a server.old in the nwserver directory? If so try renaming that and see if it comes up. Also, it could be the environment config file, maybe try TID 10023623. Lee Smith
Xenon Network Services
Snr. Technical Support
LSmith@xenon-uk.co.uk

 

[TheBoySmith]

Oooops, sorry. Forgot which forum I was in. The TID i mentioned is for nw5. My mistake. Lee Smith
Xenon Network Services
Snr. Technical Support
LSmith@xenon-uk.co.uk

 

[HARTNETT]

I renamed server.old, but it still reboots.

 

[FredWagner]

Mirrored IDE drives are a VERY bad idea - if one is trashed, it takes ALL the CPU power trying to fix the problem, there is none left to run Netware. Disconnect one of the mirrored drives - see if the server starts. If so, the other drive is bad. If it doesn't, then the disconnected drive is the good drive - swap them, see if it starts - if not, the good drive didn't have the boot files on it - used DOS utilities to make the good drive bootable and copy the netware partition, DOS Netware boot directories, etc. Been there! Once you're on the air again, build a server with SCSI drives, and NEVER build and IDE server again! (I once inherited a duplexed IDE server, had it crump on me, replaced with with SCSI. Always use SCSI for servers!)

Fred Wagner
frwagne@ci.long-beach.ca.us

 

[HARTNETT]

I do have servers with SCSI drives, but this is a tightwad client that refuses to upgrade to a true server box.
Anyway, I tried booting Server.exe from a floppy, and it still re-booted. Put the drives in a workstation, and everything booted up OK. Problem seems to be in the mother-board. Swapped processors and the problem stayed with the original motherboard.
Thanks for your help and advice. I will show the client your comments on the mirrored IDE drives.

 

[MST]

It look like a memory problem, try new memory
else remove all interface cards but video and try boot
server

Morten Schou
morten@msteknik.dk

 

[DaveBrown]

Hi
Have you got any DOS device drivers loaded via config.sys - if so try reming them out and checke for FILES and BUFFERS set in config.sys