Installing NetWare 4.11 (HDD > 8 GB)

Yes, this is a post about an operating system that is no longer supported. Look, I'm an old Novell fan, and a NetWare fan for that matter. NetWare just does things right, especially for file & print. Today, even with all of the pricey glitter and sparkle on the new OSes, NetWare still rocks and can do so at a fraction of the hardware required. I remember running NetWare 4.11 servers with 16 MB of RAM (try doing that Windows ... don't think so). I'll stop now before I get too carried away with nostalgia.

I found an old HP box laying around the house. And, instead of throwing it away like the wife wanted, I decided to turn it into a NetWare 4.11 server. The box has 128 MB of RAM, a single 13 GB hard drive. Hey, that will make a nice little server for storing ... well, I don't know what I'll store, but it will make a nice little server. Heck, 128 MB of RAM in a 4.11 box will be more than enough to get some crazy speed out of it. This should be a screaming box for my home.

Now, before you say, "It only runs IPX," know this; I don't care. The box isn't going to be connected to the internet and will only be accessible from inside the house, so it's no big deal. And, if you've ever used IPX before (for file storage), you know it's quick. IPX in combination with the traditional NetWare file system ... speed ... speed ... speed. I don't see a downside here.

It's been a while since I've installed 4.11, so when I couldn't get the CD to boot the box, I had to go digging through my stuff and find a DOS boot disk. MS-DOS 6.22 sprung to mind as the latest from Microsoft and it should work just fine with 4.11. I do remember that Win95/98 boot disks had problems with NetWare ... so I'll stick with the tried and true here. I figured that I had to manually create a DOS partition with FDISK and use FORMAT to format it with the system files. Ok, fine I can do that. However, I couldn't find a stupid boot disk. I dug through some of my old computer things and found some 3.5" diskettes; one good one was all I needed.

After looking around the internet for 5 minutes, I found this site:

http://www.allbootdisks.com/download/dos.html

Under the "Automatic Boot Disk" label, I selected Dos6.22.exe. Once download, I inserted a floppy (yes, I still have a computer with a 3.5" floppy drive), double-clicked the EXE and it did everything for me. Presto! Instant MS-DOS 6.22 boot disk. The nice thing about this boot disk is that it contained everything that I think is necessary for a boot disk to have like a cdrom driver already configured in the config.sys and autoexec.bat, deltree.exe, format, fdisk, edit, attrib, etc., etc., etc. It was perfect. Kudos for the guys that put this version together. Well done.

So with my brand new boot disk I headed back to the computer and attempted to install NetWare 4.11 again confident it would work. The computer booted up, loaded DOS, found the CDROM (made it the R: drive) and life was good. After using fdisk and format (what a blast to use those utilities again, like format c: /s -- brought back some great memories), I rebooted the computer and now C:\ had everything I needed (don't forget to comment out himem.sys in the config.sys - NetWare doesn't like memory managers like that or emm386.exe).

I switched over to R: and typed "install" and the installation was off and running. Everything was working fine until it came to the creation of a NetWare partition. I like doing installs manually, I don't want the install to automatically pick anything for me. I wanted to create a 2 GB SYS volume and use the remaining space for a DATA volume. At least, that was the plan when I started.

Through some trial and error I found that if I used IDEATA.HAM for the driver (NetWare detects and automatically uses this ... a version from 1996) that when it loads IDEHD.CDM (also a version from 1996), the DOS partition on the box becomes inaccessible. This caused errors for NetWare where it couldn't load CDROM.NLM, or ICDM.NLM or any number of other things and the install ground to a halt. I could not type "load c:\nwserver\cdrom.nlm" because it couldn't find the file (which is bull, because I know the file is there). When I exit out to DOS and do a directory listing, it looks like the entire nwserver directory is messed up ... funny characters for file names, etc. Kind of a pain. However, reboot the box, check the directory in DOS again and everything looks great. Weird. I ran chkdsk /f, and even scandisk to look for problems. I didn't find any.

So I switched to IDE.DSK from the IDEATA HAM driver, and that problem went away. At this point the install continued and cdrom loaded, icdm loaded; it started working properly. However, I know the DSK model is outdated and was replaced by the HAM/CDM model, so something's going on here. The problem now that I found is that NetWare did not recognize anything more than 8 GB for IDE disks. Okay, not so great. I finished the install, just to test it out, and everything worked fine.

After applying Support Pack 9, I could now see the entire 13 GB disk (8 GB partitioned up, and 5 GB free); however, because NetWare only allows one partition per device, I was stuck with what I had. Not good. Fdisk, format, and try again; this time looking for a real solution to install NetWare 4.11 on a single device EIDE drive greater than 8 GB.

Here's what I found:

1. You need to get the IDEHD.CDM from 4.11 Support Pack 8a. (Version 2.00.01 Tuesday, October 27, 1998). The one from Support Pack 9 will not work without more effort (Version 3.00.01 Thursday, May 18, 2000), because it requires an updated NWPA. Version 2.0 and above support extended IDE drive sizes greater than 8 GB. Which is exactly what I want.

I also included IDEATA.HAM, IDEATA.DDI, IDEHD.DDI, IDECD.CDM, and IDECD.DDI in the set of modules I copied. I wanted to be complete and sure that nothing weird would happen if I just pulled one driver over and not another.

2. Copy all of these files to either a diskette, or place them on the C: drive in a directory of your choosing. I decided that c:\drivers was good enough for me.

3. When the install starts and auto-detects the hardware, let it choose everything, but do not let it load anything. Switch out to the server console prompt and load the version of IDEHD.CDM you put in the c:\drivers directory. This one should be loaded first so that when IDEATA loads, it will not have to auto-load the CDM from sys:system (which could be the older version from 1996 and cause issues). After the CDM, load up the HAM driver (IDEATA.HAM). This just ensures that the later drivers are loaded first before the versions that cause issues.

4. I made of point of removing the versions of the drivers that NetWare 4.11 shipping code comes with during the install, and pointing the install to c:\drivers to get the newer/updated version. This is all done through the C-Worthy interface by just deleting the selected driver and then adding a new one. I chose the driver location to scan to be c:\driver and then selected the IDEATA driver. Simple. I'm not sure this step was necessary, but I did it anyway.

At this point with the correct drivers loaded NetWare would let me configure the full 13 GB drive. I partitioned up a 2 GB SYS volume and an 11 GB DATA volume. The install completed successfully from that point on. I upgraded it to Support Pack 9, and everything works fine now.

Now, if the install drive were IDE and <= 8 GB, then none of this would matter. If you have a second drive and it is greater than 8 GB, just install 4.11 Support Pack 9 and the drivers to enable >8 GB support will be installed and INSTALL will be able to carve up the disks just fine. Or, if the drive in the box is SCSI, then these are hoops you don't need to worry about.

Happy Novell-ing. :)

Gay Marriage Rears Its Head Again

I personally didn't see this, but I read about Miss California stating her opinion against gay marriage during the 2009 Miss USA contest. She was asked what she felt about gay marriage, and she told them. And surprise, surprise, because her opinion isn't in line with the ultra-liberal Hollywood types, she has been roasted in the media.

She took 1st runner up in the contest; most say because of her statement against gay marriage (she's on the right in the photo).

Here's her comment that is drawing all of the criticism:
"... I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman; no offense to anybody out there, but that's how I was raised."

Good for her; she spoke her mind on a sensitive topic and didn't even hesitate. For all of the people that are freaking out about this, they really need to get a life.

The Miss California organizers refused to speak with Carrie after the show and are currently roasting her behind her back saying that she doesn't represent the State of California or its people with her comments. Excuse me, she does. Prop 8 passed. The majority of voters in the state agree with Carrie's opinion.

Additionally, the California pageant sponsors are upset and the executives in charge of it are scrambling now to keep funding for the event solid. My bet is that they'll vet their choice next year to make sure she is more in line with how they feel. It's a sad state of affairs when contestants are now pre-judged by their political and religious beliefs before being allowed to even be considered a winner.

"Are you pro-life or pro-choice?"
"Are you for or against gay marriage?"
"Are you a Democrat or a Republican?"
"What is your religion?"

Packaging and a neat bait-and-switch lure is all these contests are turning into lately. If you don't have the looks AND the beliefs that we, the minority of Californians - not to mention Americans - have, then you have no chance. Those questions would never be tolerated during a job interview, but yet I'm sure we'll tolerate them for our poster-girls.

My respect for these events was never very high (notice, I didn't watch it), but after hearing this, I have zero respect for the owners/operators and organizers for this. What a farce!

In my book this girl has guts and is the real winner here. She said what she felt, and has not retracted it since even after the firestorm began. Good for her.

Michael J. Totten Commentary of Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

Michael has a done a very good job of reporting issues from the Middle East and digging into them to find the core of the problem. His latest read is no different. He digs into the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and describes it in small enough words that I can even comprehend what he's saying.

Here is a paragraph that sums up his article nicely:

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The “occupation” doesn’t refer to the West Bank and Gaza, and it never has. The “occupation” refers to Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. A kibbutz in the center of Israel is “occupied Palestine” according to most. “It makes no sense to a Palestinian to think about a Palestinian state alongside Israel,” Martin Kramer from the Shalem Center in Jerusalem said to me a few days ago. “From the Palestinian perspective, Israel will always exist inside Palestine.”
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Read the rest of Michael's thoughts here:
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/viewarticle.cfm/the-mother-of-all-quagmires-14423


I couldn't agree with this thought more. Palestinians, and to some extent many Arab countries, do not recognize Israel's creation in 1948; thus the war in 1948 after Israel's declaration of independence. That is the heart of the problem with the Paestinian resistance movements (i.e., Hamas, etc.). They want Jerusalem. They want Tel Aviv. They want it all from the River to the Sea. The Jewish state has no right or authority to be in Palestine and must be ejected immediately.

All of the issues that Israel constantly brings up during their negotiations for peace, are meaningless to Hamas. They shouldn't be on the table at all in their opinion.

Because of this, I find it interesting that Israel has been so civil with Palestinians at all. All of the restraint showed prior to the last Gaza op, letting humanitarian aid in the strip, phoning civilians in Gaza to warn them of attacks, allowing Palestinians to work in Israel, and allowing arab-Israelis to hold political office in Israel to represent people, etc. These very same people want Isreal destroyed, but yet Israel acts with a moral conscience and tries to be friendly and even overly helpful sometimes. I find that refreshing and actually very uplifting. In the face of almost consistent violence, Isreal still takes the higher ground against a determined enemy bent on its destruction.

I'll be the first to admit Israel has made mistakes and does inflame this situation at times. Expanding settlements in the West Bank, the wall around cities, check-points and road-blocks in the West Bank, etc., etc. These all have reasons, but do tend to incite the locals to commit a violent act against Israel.

I see the coming election in Israel as a huge indicator of what the general Israeli population wants the army to do against Palestinians. If Bibi wins (Benjamin Netanyahu), I predict a much more aggressive posture from the IDF even over what Olmert has done in the last 2 months. Make no mistake, Israeli people know that Bibi will be aggressive if chosen. If they put him in the driver's seat, it will be very interesting to see what happens in the next few months.

Calculators -- a Collecting Hobby

I don't know what it is, or what bug I've caught, but I have a thing for calculators, especially programmable calculators.

In High School I had a couple of calculators (from Sharp), one was the El-5500II that was programmable with BASIC. That was cool. I wrote a root solver and would challenge the guys that had an HP 15c to a race (time based), and my stupid, simple little root solver won. I also wrote a lunar lander game that I would play during english or whatever other boring class I was in.

In 1985, I used my EL-5500II calculator's statistical capabilities to predict the score of the BYU v Utah St. football game using previous games and linear regression. The calculator said the score would be 44-7. The actual score was 44-0. I was rooting for USU to score a touchdown really bad. They got down to the BYU 7 yard line, but couldn't punch it in. Dang! Off by a single touchdown.

In short, calculators were fun to work with, and I was hooked.

My collecting officially started when a person I work with handed me an HP-45, and said I could keep it. It had a hard plastic case, the calculator (of course), charger, manual, and leather cover. It was in fantastic condition, and still is. I pulled it out, plugged it in, and started pushing numbers around. What a cool machine! Old HP calculators just have a feel about them hard to describe if you're not a calculator lover.

From that time on I was on the lookout for older programmable-like calculators. The model in the picture above is an HP 41-cv. It is very similar to the one I own, a 41-cx. Back in the day, the 41 (c, cv, and cx) were the "cat's meow" for engineers, teachers, scientists, etc. It has expansion ports to allow for more memory, programs to plug in (games, math, statistics, budget, stocks, etc.), and external device handling. It could do it all. There are literally hundreds upon hundreds of programs written for this machine.

Ebay, pawn shops, and friends from High School all became sources for enhancing my collection. I'll admit that the most I've paid for a calculator was the HP 42s on Ebay ($165). Actually that's not too bad of a price even today. I've seen that machine go for a whole lot more. The calculator was in absolutely perfect condition (everyone calls it 'mint' on Ebay), which was very cool.

Some people are scared off by HP's RPN (Reverse Polish Notation), but it's no big deal. Once you learn it, it's a piece of cake to use. HP's newer graphing/scientific calculators now offer users the ability to choose either algebraic or RPN entry (nice feature for those uncomfortable with RPN).

I've taken out all my calculators and counted them a few times, but I don't remember the tally. It is definitely over 100, but I can't remember the exact number. By and large, the vast majority of them are programmable. I have Casio, HP, Sharp, Canon, and a TI or two.

I'm always on the lookout for a good calculator. Even if my family thinks I'm a geek, they like it when my calculator can convert from liters to gallons in "one fell swoop."

I only wish they made them like they use to. HP still makes calculators, but they are not as good of quality as before. I like the new business one they have, the 20B, and their scientific/graphing calculators are nice, but not wonderful. The TI-89 Platinum is a good machine, HP needs to get its act together to compete against it. I would be hard pressed to choose against the TI model unless HP really fixes its off-shore calculator crap they're selling now.

Bush Bashing

Ex-President Bush flew home to Texas to a crowd of 20,000 well wishers. He worked the rope lines, gave a speech and then left for his ranch. There was a boy in the crowd that had a sign that read, "President Bush, thank you for keeping me safe." He has gone home, and the people that know him, still love him and thank him for his service to America.

However, flip on over to ABCNews or any of a number of other news outlets and read the blog response. I can sum it up in one phrase: "Glad you're home, now stay there," and that is a mild comment. I was on the CBS news site, and every single comment following the story was negative. There wasn't one positive response about him. I was actually shocked. Was GWB that bad? Is GWB responsible for all of this nation's ills and troubles?

Is ex-Presidential bashing now the hip thing to do?

Maybe I grew up in a simpler time and learned a different set of morality rules than these people bashing Bush. Maybe I know that it is better to respectfully disagree than to pass yourself off as a moron by screaming out a profanity-laced argument that my Grandmother could win just by washing your mouth out with soap. Maybe people don't really respect others and just want to get their 15 minutes of fame by shouting from the rooftops hoping they'll be heard. As I said before, I was shocked and frankly, disappointed that we as a nation had sunk to this level.

Whatever it is, it's disgraceful. President Bush did his best, that's all anyone needs to say. If you disagree with that, fine. If you don't like the wars, fine. If you dislike the way the economy is performing, fine, get in line behind me. If you have problems with a myriad of other things that you believe are the direct cause of one man (the former President), then you have that right. However, form an intelligent, coherant and respectful argument and present it without prejudice or profanity, and then we'll talk.

I do feel however, that it is a disgrace when we as a nation don't let the man sail off into the sunset, so to speak, but rather continue to tear him down as he gracefully exits the White House and turns the keys over to the new occupant.

I hope we can be a better group of citizens when Barack Obama leaves the White House and not turn into a group of thugs intent of holding him accountable for all of our ills.

In short, I hope we can grow up.

Obama Sworn In

Okay, I admit it, I watched.

I'm at work and flipped on my Slingbox connection at home to see the inaguration. One of my co-workers was watching it streamed on MSNBC, so I figured I'd watch as well. Beyond JFK's famous "ask not what your country can do for you" speech, I haven't seen a single second of an inaguration -- until now. After watching pieces of this one, I think I'll avoid the next one too. How can so many people like standing in the cold for this type of event? It boggles the mind.

If I could sum up the proceedings in one word, I would choose boring. I actually found myself yawning a couple of times.

Luckily with my Slingbox, I could fast-forward through the slow parts to the good parts (admistration of the oaths of office, and a few sound bites from the acceptance speech). With my attention span being so low, "cut to the chase" is a good idea to keep me interested.

Okay, game on. Let's get 'em Barack.

Cease Fire Realized

Israel has self-called a unilateral cease fire in the Gaza Strip. Hamas, has decided to join with Israel's call for a cease fire and they give the "Zionist occupiers" 7 days to withdraw all troops from Gaza, or else.

Israel has decided not to open any border crossings (except for medical and other humanitarian supplies) and in my opinion will most likely keep the troops in Gaza and blockade on it until it is sure no military action will take place against its citizens.

Hamas welcomes the cease fire. They have been beat up pretty badly and need time to regroup. They will never admit defeat, and don't have to in this case. Israel didn't boot them from power, and couldn't completely stop rockets from firing.

I'm curious to see how long this lasts. Say, 7 days?