compaq specific neccesary utilities

We got couple of old PC's to run as testing servers for stac, and whatever else we need to test. They're Compaq Deskpro 2000, with 2333MMX Intel CPU's. They need a special set of tools, provided by Compaq, in order to access its Bios. When installed, these tools live on separate small partition. It is neccessary to have this setup before installing any unix/linux system. Install package comes on three floppies that can be downloaded from http://h18007.www1.hp.com/support/files/deskpro/us/locate/24_71.html. Important: windows floppy copying tool does not check for bad sectors by default, nor is that done with the installation of those tools. Make sure you do that before making floppies with install files.

IMPORTANT NOTE: if you are making those floppies from Windows OS, it can not be NT or WIN2K, it has to be WIN98 (maybe WIN95 would do also). this is so that boot sectors written on floppies are compatible with the mini WIN system that is on floppies.

dos tools

http://www.bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm
http://www.drd.dyndns.org/fr_index.html?/disks.html

using dos formated floppies from linux

http://www.momonga-linux.org/docs/Removable-HOWTO/C/autogen-3.html

bios access: procedure with compaq diagnostic tools

many compaq computers, including this one, need a special set of tools, in order to access BIOS. these tools have to be installed on the first partition on the HD that needs to be of special kind, "Compaq Diagnostic", or something like that. Installer for those tools needs to be obtained from Helwett Packard website (they merged with Compaq), from the "sotware and drivers" section. Installer makes 3 floppies which are going to be used to boot off them and to make needed partition with those tools. For this model, it's crucial that NT, Win2k, or XP Windows are NOT USED to make those floppies. I did it with Win 98, and it was fine, most probably, straight from DOS would be fine too. The problem is that if those floppies are made from an NT compatible OS, they will need NTLDR (software that's run in the earliest stages of booting in NT, i think), which they don't have, because they are made to be bootable at the time when current version of Windows was 98. So, make them from DOS, or Win 95/98.

Another crucial point, before you start from the diagnostic flooppy, you need some free space at the beggining of your HD, otherwise, diagnostic floppy will be failling, reporting error of not enough free space on HD.

Next step is to boot from diagnostic floppy, follow questions, take defaults. After several exchanges of all three floppies, and a reboot (or even two), you will end up with a menu with 3 options, one of them being "Install diagnostic software", take that option. After it, you should be asked to remove floppy. Once in the running setup (reboot + F10), go into computer setup option and make sure tha APM is turned off. That seemed to be the only important thing (it was already off, on both of my compaq's) to take care off. While i was there, i run the test suite too.

compaq diagnostic partition and booting issue

Ideally, one should keep the compaq diagnostic partition and access to Bios. However, i couldn't get FreeBSD (tried 4.7 and 5.0) to boot after i would install it sucesufuly. I tried it with all option given regarding the MBR (master boot record): with FreeBSD MBR, with standard one, and with FreeBSD slice set ot bootable (which normally doesn't need to be done). Nothing worked. Many people reported that without compaq diagnostics partition, unix and gnu/linux OS's might not reboot, especialy not after the halt. Since i couldn't see any other option available, i installed FreeBSD 5.0 without compaq partition (deleted it). So far, it seems to work fine: i rebooted and halted machine dozen times and had no problems, it comes back normally each time. This still doesn't mean that the problem is solved, and this issue needs to be kept in mind.

FreeBSD 5.0 - install notes

I created two floppies (kernel and root), obtained from ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/releases/i386/5.0-RELEASE/floppies/ following http://www.freebsd.org/handbook/install.html instructions. Booted off them and followed presented menue with accepting almost all defaults. For MBR, i choose standard option (standard MBR installed). Network card was recongized, and DHCP was configured fine. The rest of the install is also well automated, i choose uk mirror to get the files via ftp (using proxy, so passive option) and answered few questions at the end, before rebooting it from its own HD. I tested dozen of reboots and system halt, no problems so far, it boots back normaly.

Solaris 9 (x86) - install notes

there is one install disk, and two OS CD's.

steps:

boot from first CD

hardware auto-detection runs, presents with the results, and asks for any manual changes

my video card was recongized, test run, and i was presented with Sun Desktop (kdmconfig can be used later to re-configure window system)

swap partition gets created at the beggining of HD (user gets asked several times for confirmations) and mini-root filesystem gets copied on it.

you get presented with a menue to reboot, press enter, eject CD as soon as computer reboots. then, accept few defaults. after this, my install would stall. i had to switch computer off/on, next time it would be fine. This pattern was repeated twice, since first install stalled at configuring DNS (i took "non-networked" computer option second time). I was presented with GUI to configure time-zone. From then on, GUI led me to installation of software from OS CD 1.

weird bug: first boot always hangs. i turn the box off/on, second boot is fine, straight into sun desktop. partition map doesn't seem right too, but the system runs, with sun desktop doing fine.

This booting issue and partition map both needs to be sorted out, but since 3Gb is too small HD to have full functional installs of Oracle and Sybase, i will need to repeat this install anyway
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