Hi everyone. I have never really had much experience with Novell Netware 3.12 and right now I have kind of been thrown in at the deepend without a life-jacket.
Anyway, here's what's happened so far. A few days ago me and a colleague went to repair a Novell Netware server that had crashed a day earlier. When we arrived the server had been rebooted, and we were presented with a coredump screen. If we tried to log the dump info it was too large to fit on the HDD so we just left it.
We rebooted the server and it attempted to mount the SYS volume. This process took about 15 - 20 mins before saying it couldn't mount SYS due to mirror mismatch error (which we don't quite understand because there are no apparent mirrors of the volume. I have read that Novell automatically makes a mirror copy of the volume anyway, so maybe that's why we have this problem). We checked the information and came across VREPAIR, which we ran and waited for it to finish. The process took approx 1 hour, and reported 4 fixed errors. We then restarted and we got the same mirror mismatch error. After we reported this info to some of our other colleagues, we were informed that VREPAIR should be run multiple times before all is fixed. Is this true?? We then shut the server down, and loaded it up one more time before we left it for the day. The SYS mounted, the server loaded up, booted through, and loaded into monitor. As soon as I saw this I turned on the mail server as I thought all was working and I wanted to confirm that it was. As soon as I turned the mail server on, the file server (with all the problems) then crashed out from monitor and presented us with another coredump screen. We left the server for that day.
The next day we ran VREPAIR a second time, and the process took 3h 56 mins and 44 secs (as logged by the server) and almost 3.88 million errors were reported and apparently "fixed". We then ran INSTALL and attempted a volume mount through there. During this time, before completion, we got a prompt saying: "backout failed transactions?? Yes or No??" We selected no and the volume mounted correctly. We then rebooted, SYS attempted to mount, and once again failed on mounting (again, 15 - 20 mins later).
Right now the server is switched off because we have all had a long weekend in the UK, but tomorrow we return to it and I am hoping we can get further than we stand right now.
Any and all input / help / advice will be greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance
Dominic
Anyway, here's what's happened so far. A few days ago me and a colleague went to repair a Novell Netware server that had crashed a day earlier. When we arrived the server had been rebooted, and we were presented with a coredump screen. If we tried to log the dump info it was too large to fit on the HDD so we just left it.
We rebooted the server and it attempted to mount the SYS volume. This process took about 15 - 20 mins before saying it couldn't mount SYS due to mirror mismatch error (which we don't quite understand because there are no apparent mirrors of the volume. I have read that Novell automatically makes a mirror copy of the volume anyway, so maybe that's why we have this problem). We checked the information and came across VREPAIR, which we ran and waited for it to finish. The process took approx 1 hour, and reported 4 fixed errors. We then restarted and we got the same mirror mismatch error. After we reported this info to some of our other colleagues, we were informed that VREPAIR should be run multiple times before all is fixed. Is this true?? We then shut the server down, and loaded it up one more time before we left it for the day. The SYS mounted, the server loaded up, booted through, and loaded into monitor. As soon as I saw this I turned on the mail server as I thought all was working and I wanted to confirm that it was. As soon as I turned the mail server on, the file server (with all the problems) then crashed out from monitor and presented us with another coredump screen. We left the server for that day.
The next day we ran VREPAIR a second time, and the process took 3h 56 mins and 44 secs (as logged by the server) and almost 3.88 million errors were reported and apparently "fixed". We then ran INSTALL and attempted a volume mount through there. During this time, before completion, we got a prompt saying: "backout failed transactions?? Yes or No??" We selected no and the volume mounted correctly. We then rebooted, SYS attempted to mount, and once again failed on mounting (again, 15 - 20 mins later).
Right now the server is switched off because we have all had a long weekend in the UK, but tomorrow we return to it and I am hoping we can get further than we stand right now.
Any and all input / help / advice will be greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance
Dominic