Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!dptg!ulysses!andante!mit-eddie!snorkelwacker!usc!samsung!uunet!sco!rogerk From: rogerk@sco.COM (Roger Knopf 5502) Newsgroups: comp.unix.xenix Subject: Re: Xenix upgrade horror story Message-ID: <8227@scorn.sco.COM> Date: 20 Jul 90 20:06:25 GMT References: <1990Jul19.101125.245@bbt.se> Sender: news@sco.COM Reply-To: rogerk@sco.COM (Roger Knopf 5502) Organization: The Santa Cruz Operation, Inc. Lines: 38 In article <1990Jul19.101125.245@bbt.se> pgd@bbt.se (P.Garbha) writes: [various symptoms deleted] I agree with Ross, it sounds like your Xenix partition extends beyond 1024 cylinders. Since there is no standard way of handling >1024 cylinders in the BIOS (some do, some don't), and our boot code uses the BIOS, when either /boot (I suspect in this case) or /xenix ends up all or partly on cylinders >1024, things will behave very oddly when booting. The high-order bits of the cylinder number are essentially masked off so you are reading /boot from somewhere other than where it _really_ resides. Most controllers and disks that have >1024 cylinders have a format option that will remap the disk to less cylinders, more heads and sectors. I suggest you either look into that option (for long term satisfaction). Making sure that /boot and /xenix are within 1024 cylinders can only (easily) be guaranteed by making your root file system within the first 1024 cylinders of the hard disk. >After that i just had to surrender, copy the whole system with tar to >a set of backup tapes, install the new version the "real" way, and >copy back the tapes. Now it works again. > >My suspicion is that this trouble all comes from serialization. My >old version of xenix had a different serial number than the new one, >and somehow or another it detects that the file system was installed >with another serial number, and therefore did not work. Actually, this has nothing to do with serialization and we do not do anything like write the serial number on the file system. -- Roger Knopf SCO Consulting Services "The True Believers will...formulate uunet!sco!rogerk or rogerk@sco.com a message that even a monkey could 408-425-7222 (voice) 408-458-4227 (fax) understand." --Jeff Tye