Topic: Upgrade gone bad, now what

[Gerald Jansen]

I attempted to upgrade my home server from 4.1.2  to version 5.0 Everything went fine until I attempted to create a emergency floppy. Seems the floppy cable was loose and it wouldn't or couldn't write to the device. the only way I continue was to shut the system down and repair the floppy. Once that was done the system was dead. In any event I now have a 4.1.2 and a half server. I can't get it to go back to 4.1.2, when I attempt to run the 4.1.2 emergency disk it doesn't work and when I attempt to run a 5.0 emergency disk it  dosen't work. I then thought well, I will  reinstall 4.1.2 using the upgrade option, great idea. However, when I attempt it I get an error message saying one or more devices were not properly unmounted. In frustration I build a new server and attempted to do a clean 5.0  that also bombed. After what appeared to be a normal install I got the following errors
    loading esmith
    Uncompressing Linux
    crc error
    System halted.

This is the same error that I got on the failed upgrade.

I then did a clean install of 4.1.2, no problem. restored from a backup CD. The backup didn't rebuild the virtual domains, user files, etc. so I don't know what happened there.  In any event. does anyone know how I can restart the failed upgrade and properly shut it down. I have hours of work on it that I just don't want to throw away.

[Darrell May]

Gerald Jansen wrote:
> I then did a clean install of 4.1.2, no problem. restored
> from a backup CD. The backup didn't rebuild the virtual
> domains, user files, etc. so I don't know what happened
> there.  In any event. does anyone know how I can restart the
> failed upgrade and properly shut it down. I have hours of
> work on it that I just don't want to throw away.

If you did a clean install you repartitioned and reformated your hard drive.  This of course destroys all data on the hard drive.  No upgrade will recover this data.  You already blew it away doing the fresh install

You mention you have a backup CD and did a restore from this CD.  What was on the backup CD?  How did you create it?  How did you restore it?

The e-smith way is to perform a backup to desktop or backup to tape.  Do you have either of these standard backups available?

Unfortunately, my guess is your stuck.  If you had not performed a fresh install there may have been some hope.  Without a valid backup.....

Sorry,

Darrell

Darrell

[rob fantini]

I got the same error after a successful fresh install.....

   During the install I choose to use raid  using 2-disks.
 On restart, during adaptec post, the drive names displayed, then after 2-min there was  something like 'drive not ready' msg.
 
  Pressed ctl-a and went into adaptec utilities.  I could not access the disks.... I did not write down the exact error, but the diagnostic screen said the host adapter was ok.  the 2 disks would not communicate with the host adapter.
 The adapter was a pci adaptec 284? with 3 idm dnes 309170W drives. This was not an on-board adapter.

 I tried changing cables, changing host adapters .. no luck.

 So I installed with a different host adapter [dpt] and used just one disk and stayed away from raid.  I've been able to re-boot.

 Regarding your old setup, you did save your old settings to desktop?