Pool SYS Not Found - What are my options?

[jesseroscoe]

Hello,

I have a NW6.5 SP5 server that is now missing the SYS pool. If I try to manually activate the pool, I get a message that says Pool SYS not found. If I type "pools", it only shows my other two pools (vol1 and vol2). This server was installed in October with SP5 and nothing has been changed anytime recently.

What are my options for fixing this server? Will it require a rebuild from scratch? Also, since the other two pools/volumes are intact, can the SYS pool/volume be restored without disturbing them? I have my CNE in 6, but I'm not an expert by any means, so talk to me with specific instructions please.

Thanks,
Kevin

 

[marvhuffaker]

That's a tough one. If it's gone it's gone, but why? Did you span it across multiple disks? Did the Driver get horked? Did the adapater fail? Are the other pools on the same disk system?

It is possible to manually rebuild the SYS volume, but you have to look at it from a realistic perspective. This requires an expert level of technical knowledge of the NetWare server, and also involves creating / fixing NDS - hopefully you have more than one server.

Marvin Huffaker, MCNE

http://www.redjuju.com

See me speak at GWAVACON Jan 21-23 in Dallas.

http://www.redjuju.com/company/events.htm

 

[jesseroscoe]

All 3 pools are(were) on a single RAID5 array across 4 SCSI drives with a 5th as a hot spare.
Supposing that there is no hardware failure, I have created a new SYS pool and SYS volume through NSSMU, then performed a down-server upgrade. All 3 volumes will now mount (SYS has errors probably due to NDS) and I have a file copy backup of SYS elsewhere that I can try to restore. Is it possible to bring this server back into our tree if SYS is successfully restored?
The object and references have been removed from eDir and there are 7 other servers in the tree. This server no longer holds any master replica, it was moved. I also ran a srvRef program to clean up references before removing the server object.

Let me know if you can think of any way to make this work, short of reinstalling from scratch.

Thanks,
Kevin

 

[jesseroscoe]

Ok, I have done a reinstall of Netware and chose to leave the NSS pools and volumes intact, minus SYS of course. I have the server installed back into the tree where it was previously and I am able to access all the data from the old volumes.

Short of checking/adding partition replicas back to server and configuring NTP, is there anything that I will need to reconfigure on the server to get back to where I was before? As mentioned previously, I have only a file copy backup of the previous SYS volume.

Any suggestions or tips would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Kevin

 

[marvhuffaker]

Nice job. That's not an easy task.

Just make sure Time is configured and synchronized. Make sure servers are communicating. If you've restored all your files, you're probably in pretty good shape. There may be isolated issues here and there, but nothing like what you've already been through.

Marvin Huffaker, MCNE

http://www.redjuju.com

See me speak at GWAVACON Jan 21-23 in Dallas.

http://www.redjuju.com/company/events.htm