HP 9000/840S is alive (sorta)

From: Steve Robertson <steverob_at_hotoffice.com>
Date: Tue Jun 8 13:47:38 1999

> >You might be better off looking for a replacement hard disk unit.
There's
> >a 'shoebox' sized thing that contains a 300Mbyte ESDI (I think) drive +
> >the appropriate HP interface board. I can find the number if Joe doesn't
> >beat me to it.
>
> You're way too slow! Who do you think found this and told Steve about
> it? And THEN helped him load it. The ESDI drives are the 7957/7958/7959
> series. They're about 80, 158 and 300 Mb capacity. I think there's a 7957
> on E-OverPay right now.
>

I've got several of the "showbox" drives with my HP 3000/42 but, don't want
to cannibalize that system (I think they're 7963B's). I may have to shop
around for another one.

Last night I fired up the 9000/840 again and got better results. Seems like
the HD is starting to loosen up a little. Could be that the servos were a
little sticky from being stored. Every time I start the system, it gets
fewer errors.

I was able to boot the system in single-user mode and got in as ROOT. I
don't know the exact boot sequence because my terminal failed during the
process ( cold solder joint in the verticle defelection circuitry). By the
time I got it hooked up again, the system had completed booting and I was
magically logged in as ROOT. Yipee!!!

Before I can start the system in multiple user mode, I gotta figure out a
fail safe way to change the ROOT password. According to the MAN pages, you
gotta supply the current password if you use the "passwd" command. That
won't work because I don't know the current password. DOH!

I can think of two possibilities:

1.) Create a new user with ROOT permissions.

2.) Modify the ROOT entry in the /ETC/PASSWORD file. This sounds kinda
risky. If the syntax isn't correct, I could really be screwed.

If anyone has any better suggestions, I'd like to hear them. In any event,
I don't want to risk locking myself out of the system.

It looks like there are very few user files on the system (at least on this
HD). Mostly what I'm seeing is the HPUX OS installation. Either the files
were purged, prior to decommission, or they're on the other HD.

Now, I gotta figure out how to mount the other drive. Every time I run the
command 'mount' I get an ugly error. When I run it, I can hear the HD
seeking and after about 2 minutes, the error message displayed. Gotta
feeling this utility is on one of the bad HD sectors.

Anyway, things are looking better :-)
Catch Ya Later,

Steve Robertson - <steverob_at_hotoffice.com>
Received on Tue Jun 08 1999 - 13:47:38 BST

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