Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Dedicated Server : Cobalt RaQ 4i Restore Problems (PLEASE HELP)

[existenz]

Ok here is the story...

I was installing a script on the raq for some billing. It called for a few perl modules and I did't want to mess up the machines so I thought then when I was getting modules from CPAN that it would ask me before installing dependancies.

What happened was it installed the latest version of Perl and screwed up the GUI. I did't realize it till I log into the box to update a password and all hell broke loose.

Somehow it shutdown the entire box no ssh no apache nothing. So I opened up the box and pulled the drive and put a new drive in (IBM 80Gig) just to install a OS on. I was hoped to boot from that drive and copy what I needed off the old drive since I was stupid and did't make a backup in days.

I put my burned copy of the the OS Restore in my machine, net booted the raq and it says it formed the drive...THEN it just reboots and won't boot again.

I never had this happen before so I put a different drive in, and then the original drive...I swapped the RAM (just in case) and it all does the same thing. I got a new OS Restore CD, same thing. Once I tried with no hard drive and the LCD says formatting and their is not drive to format.

PLEASE tell me if their is ANYTHING I can do. I really need this machine backup! I really apprecaite anyones help!!!

[Cephren]

Use a serial cable.................

connect the other end to a windows machine and connect it your raq in serial port 1. Start up hyper terminal in 19200 baud rate (i think i recall) and boot up the raq and see where's it stuck in hyperterminal.

You can go into maintenance mode from there using hyper terminal.


1. make sure theres no dust in the ram slots.
2. place the original drive back into your server
3. make sure you grounded yourself when you touched the mobo or the ram. Pray you werent statically charged when you opened up the server.
4. boot up with serial
5. go into maintnenace mode.
6. uninstall the newer version of perl.


All the original raq stuff is in:
ftp://ftp.cobalt.com/pub/products/raq4/RPMS/


in case you need any

[existenz]

Can you believe it...I really thought I was loosing my mind, I have worked with this hardware for a while and I did't notice all afternoon that I had the IDE cable plugged into the secondary port.

Thanks for the advice it helped clear it up quickly!!

[mikeh]

um, another thing, afaik raq4x's will only support upto 20gb

[cbtrussell]

That's incorrect. No problem with 80 or even 120GB drives on RaQ4's. Some older RaQ3's can't take anything above 32GB. RaQ2's can't take larger than 32GB under any circumstance.

Brandon