OS/2 and Nortel Voice Mail

SCCutler

SCCutler

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Spike Cutler
Long shot, but there are a lot of sharp folks here.

We have a Nortel Norstar phone system with the "NAM" (Nortel Applications Module) voice mail system. It runs on an OS/2 load.

The disk will no longer boot, coming up with an error message, !! SYS02025 which, from my research, tells me that the disk is having trouble reading after the master boot record.

Have seen some info which suggests that i may be possible to repair the boot, perhaps even by using something like FDISK, but I am certainly unsure, and there are not that many folks who know OS/2.

I need to either (1) fix this disk, or (2) find a newly-imaged hard disk with the voice mail system on it. There are outfits which will sell you a new disk (it's a plain ol' IDE), for $600.00 or something like that, which is ludicrous because you are not buying a new program or license, it's licensed with the box.

Also, once I have a working disk, is there any reason why I could not use Ghost or equivalent to make a backup image as security against future failures?

Any of you have experience with either, and able to offer advise / suggestions?
 
Is it out of the question to buy a new HD, install OS/2 and NVM from scratch? Would probably cost you less than $50 for the whole setup.

And I see no reason you would not be able to use a backup system for the new harddrive.
 
There's the rub; I cannot find anyone who will admit to having the VM software system available to load; they only want to do the load themselves (or "repair the hard drive," as they call it!) and sell it to you for $$$$$$$$$; what you have described is precisely accurate, but getting the S/W to load is the challenge.
 
OOofff. OS/2. (rumbles around, thinks he has a copy on floppies in the garage somewhere).

Spike, can you get somebody local to just image the hard drive to another disk? If it's a boot-sector-only thing, maybe you can load OS/2 on a new disk and then image (or copy) everything else off the old drive. Chances are you've got a boot sector error. If the FAT is messed up, your scr#$%$. Set the old drive as a secondary and then copy away. That might be my first attempt at this...

Of course, you'll need an old IBM XT box to do it.. :rolleyes:
 
Bill, you are thinking like me here. I know enough to know that the error message is from the boot sector, which (in turn) tells me that the disk is at the very least still capable of reading. If we can just find a way to make the disk bootable again, it may work.

It is an IDE drive.
 
SCCutler said:
Bill, you are thinking like me here. I know enough to know that the error message is from the boot sector, which (in turn) tells me that the disk is at the very least still capable of reading. If we can just find a way to make the disk bootable again, it may work.

It is an IDE drive.
Click to expand...

If you have another computer, you might be able to add it in as a slave, then grab what you need. I believe OS/2 uses FAT16, so it should be readable from Windows....
 
Spike, I completely agree with Nick.

See if you can get a new drive of the appropriate size, load the OS, set the old one up as a slave, and see if you can read/copy the data & files off. When you do that, you should be able to copy everything, overwrite the configs on the new disk (so you'll maintain all the old settings).

You don't want to reuse the drive. It's a matter of time before it goes TU again. You don't need bondo....
 
I found an outfit that will sell me a brand-new one, with a complete software load for $129.00- software is an upgrade, too. One-year warranty. Ordered, shipped today, no further discussion required.

Have learned a bit more in the process. The HD cannot be too big (BIOS limitations)- or so I am told. The new one is 2.5Gig, enough for approximately 250 hours of messages (!).

After I get the new one, I may try to ghost it, just for fun, as I have two (!) boxen with bad HDs. With the new drive in and the VM back operational, I will also have the freedom to play with the old ones to see (for fun) whether I can bring it back. It would be nice if I could, just to salvage any messages that might be on the old drive and not retrieved.

But guess what: new drive arrives, one call to the telecom programming guy, and we are back in business, and Spike is no longer wasting billable time and mental energy on phone systems...
 
Spike, were I you, I'd image the entire drive to another one when you get it. See if it boots & runs. Then put it in a box somewhere.... Problem solved.
 
wsuffa said:
Spike, were I you, I'd image the entire drive to another one when you get it. See if it boots & runs. Then put it in a box somewhere.... Problem solved.
Click to expand...

Bill, you are a man whose very thoughts resonate in the wellspring of my mind.

That's the plan!
 
Phones suck. Started today at 8am. 17 hours later and still working on our phone system.
 
What sucks so bad, is the way most phone systems still want you to have to program features and functions with a keyset and cryptic key sequences, rather than just allowing you to do it with a 'puter. Plus, lots of proprietary terminology instead of just being descriptive of what a particular change does.
 
SCCutler said:
What sucks so bad, is the way most phone systems still want you to have to program features and functions with a keyset and cryptic key sequences, rather than just allowing you to do it with a 'puter. Plus, lots of proprietary terminology instead of just being descriptive of what a particular change does.
Click to expand...

The one that we are installing was built in 1994. It is configured via serial port and a terminal. Still very cryptic.
 
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