Topic: If you are a Linux Guru I need help

[edb]

Sorry this is not about SME this time but I got called into work because of a power surge that took the data server (Redhat 7.x) down.
Tried rebooting server several times but no video and no post? Server was toast.

Had a new IBM Netfinity on hand. It had a hot-swap cage with one drive available which I removed because it  was a test server and I didn’t want to loose anything on it.

Removed SCSI drive and Sym53c895 controller from old server and placed into new server and rebooted.

After LILO boot:  I get this error:

SCSI host 0 abort (pid 0) timed out - resetting
SCSI bus is being reset for host 0 channel 0.
sym53c8xx_reset: pid=0 reset_flags=2 serial_number=1 serial_number_at_timeout=3

This is a continuous loop with the serial_ number incrementing by 1 each time around.

Example:
SCSI host 0 abort (pid 0) timed out - resetting
SCSI bus is being reset for host 0 channel 0.
sym53c8xx_reset: pid=0 reset_flags=2 serial_number=2 serial_number_at_timeout=3

SCSI host 0 abort (pid 0) timed out - resetting
SCSI bus is being reset for host 0 channel 0.
sym53c8xx_reset: pid=0 reset_flags=2 serial_number=3 serial_number_at_timeout=3

Anyone have an idea as to what I can do to resolve this stressful situation?  
Thanks in advance

[Denbert]

I'm not a guru, but this CD has helped me recovering data.

See http://www.sysresccd.org/

Good luck.

[edb]

Thank you

It will at least give me a start. I read documentation talking about editing the lilo.conf file but had no idea as to how I could do that when the system won't boot.

[edb]

I finally solved my own problem.

Turns out that the Red Hat distro version 6.2 kernel was complied for symetrical multi processing (smp)running on an old dual processor PIII which developed a pooched MainBoard from the power surge.

I tried to get the thing running again by installing the SCSI drive into a new IBM Netfinity server which was giving me the "cannot mount root fs" errors.

Did some research an no one else seems to of had any luck with Netfinity servers and my particular kernel version but regardless, after hours of trying everything you can think of ... even using the boot cd suggested in this thread but to no end.

The handy boot cd gave me access to the drive though which I did not have initially and by mounting the SCSI drive at /dev/sda1 /mnt/root I was able to determine that the drive contents was intact.  

The answer to my problem was to get another dual processor machine (closely matching the original)which I just happened to find one. I hooked up the scsi drive to this PC and things started to happen.
The long and short of it was that it booted up perfectly just as though nothing had ever happeded.
I did have to swap the scsi controler and nic cards from the old PC to the new one but that was it. DONE

Thanks for all your help