UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Hello all,

I'm trying to run an old SCO 5.0.4 server into VMWare workstation (and later, ESX). I've used Ghost to dump the entire image into the virtual disk, and of course it won't start since the SCSI drivers need to be replaced.

Now I've tried to boot the virtual system with a generic boot/rootdisk, and used the link=blc command to make the kernel aware BusLogic (vmware emulates those). This seems to go well, as I can see the %Sdsk device in the boot screen (see attachment). I can also see a few hd devices in /dev including hd0root, and for example, a 'head /dev/hd02' returns some binary garbage telling me that I'm looking at the raw disk contents.

Now, what I intend to do is to mount the system, try to chroot to it, and adjust the kernel and boot parameters to make the system bootable again. However, I can't seem to mount the hd devices ("cannot stat /dev/hd*). This could be due to my lack of knowledge concerning SCO installation and boot options (all SCO systems I managed were already installed and ran fine).

My questions: How do I proceed in mounting the disks? Should I have created a kernel with BusLogic drivers -prior- to making the Ghost image? Is it even possible with SCO 5.0.4 as I notice that 5.0.7 actually recognises the disk as VMware? Should I use a system specific bootdisk (created on the old physical machine)?

I know there are some good documents on installing SCO in VM on the web, but I've not yet seen a good procedure on virtualizing existing servers..

Thanks for any input you may have.

VMWare supports boot CD's, so if you have any boot CD's for SCO you can use them.

Unfortunately, no.. 5.0.4 is all I have, and that CD doesn't seem bootable (I think it's bootable from version 5.0.7).

I was hoping I just couldn't work out the mount command properly (hence this question in the 'Dummies' section

It could also help, if someone has a 5.0.4 actually running in VMware, and posting the images of boot/root floppies somewhere. If they're system specific to VMware, they should start my server..?

One wonders how SCO ever got installed then.

.. I have floppies, which then ask for a CD. Except under VMware, then it gives errors about /dev/install. I also noticed with SCO's updates 5.0.7 bootdisk, that it seems to detect a 'vmware virtual disk' in addition to the BusLogic emulated disk.

According to this you need the 5.0.7 boot CD -- you can get it from downloading SCO's trial version. The 5.0.4 CD won't work, it'll give you the error you noted.

I've seen all those documents, yes. 5.0.7 trial versions aren't available (any more?) or I can't find them.

I noticed something else: on the original machine, the divvy command shows the root as HTFS and boot as EAFS. In the virtual machine, those are marked "NON FS". Could it be that a generic boot disk has no knowledge of those filesystems?

I'm beginning to think it might be better to make the kernel buslogic-aware first, and THEN image the thing into vmware.