Nov 2007, Rebuilding the Osprey OS / Application

Intro

On Nov 2007, the Osprey disk or OS was damage so it would not
reboot properly. The disk was still readable. Note on installing
the OS and Opersy application.

The motherboard is a ASUS P4VP-MX-UAYZ.
The motherboard only has 1 serial port, 2 ports are needed, the computer
has a serial/parallel PCI board is installed to provide the 2nd port.

NOTE: this is written from the point of view of what I did to get the osprey computer restored.  
Depending on what computer is being used, availability of binaries and support, etc., things may be different.

1. Installing W2K

The required operating system is window 2000.

Tony had the CD-ROM with licence key.  Made a copy to be stored with the osprey manual.

1. Install window 2000 from the CD-ROM
   Registration key located on the sticker on the computer.

2. Install Drivers:
   The Windows 2000 installation doesn't contain support for the built in ethernet.  Tony downloaded 
motherboard drivers/manual from ASUS web site: asus_p4vp-mx-Win2K_files
   Catch-22: The files are zip files, and there was no zip support on the w2k machine, so I loaded 7-zip, a gpl'd
zip manager (tried winzip first, but the current versions of winzip hiccup on install on the w2k base
install, they require upgrades, which we can't do without a network connection...).  The install file is 
here: 7z442.exe

2.a. Install Serial Device Drivers
   First run through I forgot to install the drivers for the serial board.  It's a Koutech IOFLEX 2SP board, drivers are here: IOFLEX-2SP.zip

2.b. Install Osprey drivers
   First run through I didn't install the drivers for the Osprey board.  Now, this was a bit peculiar, because unlike the serial ports of the
pci-serial board, the Osprey board didn't show up in the hardware manager.  I'd assumed that maybe that was taken care of in the install for
the Osprey software (see part 6), but it wasn't.  I had unseated the card twice, but no change.  Finally, I tried the Osprey card in a different
PC (George's PC), to no avail, but when I put it back in the osprey computer, suddenly it was picked up by the Win2K plug-n-play, and was listed
in the hardware manager.  I talked to the Strobe Data support guy, who said that shouldn't be a problem, once the card is installed.  Uh-huh.

It turned out that Fred didn't include the driver in the zip package he'd pu on the TCS3 webpage, but it was included in the Osprey directory on
the old disk, which I zipped up and placed here: OriginalOspreyDirectory.200712.10.zip

This is the file that should be used instead of Fred's original Osprey.zip file.  I used the Win2k driver install utility, pointed it to the directory
expanded from the "Original..." zip file, found the *.inf file it needed, and it installed fine.


3. Install Service Pack 4
    Downloaded and installed W2K Service Pack 4, which I've placed here:  W2KSP4_EN.EXE  This is a "network install,"
meaning all the files should be contained in the executable, it "shouldn't" need to download files from any place
else (they call it a "network install" because you can download it to your network then use it multiple times).

4. Update Internet Explorer
    Downloaded and installed Internet Explorer 6, which I've placed here:  ie6setup.exe
Now, this really is a network install, the executable downloads a binaries from Microsoft, so it's possible that at
some point in the future this will fail to work.  If it fails, attempt to use the installed version of IE (version 5)
to perform a software update, and this will likely point you in the right direction for downloading IE 6 (note, at this
time the current version of IE is version 7, which is not supported for W2K).

5. Install Adobe Reader
    Downloaded and installed Adobe Reader, which I've placed here:  AdbeRdr811_en_US.exe
Like the IE installer, this also downloads binaries, so may quit working at some point in the future.  If so, go to 
the Adobe website and get the new installer.

6. Install Osprey Software
    Downloaded the Osprey.zip file that Fred K. placed here:  Osprey.zip NOTE: DON'T USE THIS FILE!!!  See below!
Expanded the zipfile to a directory named "osprey" on the desktop.  Fred's directions were as follows:

    "To load the Osprey software on another machine, run the self-extracting 
    executable osnt423.exe located in the zip file.  Then overwrite 
    the rest of the files in the zip file to put the machine in the last saved 
    operating configuration."

To expand on that a bit, in the osprey folder (where we've used the 7-zip program to expand the Osprey.zip contents to),
there's an executable named osnt423.exe  This creates C:\Program Files\Strobe Data\Osprey  which is the basic factory install
of the osprey software.  During the install it asked a couple of questions, like the type of board we have (PCI osprey board),
and about additional drivers (none of which I selected).

Unfortunately, the file created by Fred (or maybe not, who really knows), didn't contain the same stuff that was loaded on the
original Osprey Win2k install, so I didn't use it.  I used the file from here: OriginalOspreyDirectory.200712.10.zip (which I 
created from the original Osprey Win2k install).

I copied the rest of the files in the Desktop\osprey directory to the 
C:\Program Files\Strobe Data\Osprey\Images directory, overwriting the contents of that directory, which should make it identical
to what was running on the T5 machine before it crashed.

7. Install VNC Client/Server
    Downloaded and installed VNC software, placed it here:  vnc-4_1_2-x86_win32.exe
Just ran the executable, it took care of the rest.  Set the password.

8. Install Cygwin basic install plus ssh.
    Cygwin updates so frequently that you should just download and install the latest version from cygwin.com

*9. At this point I realized I hadn't installed the drivers for the serial device, see step 2.a.

*10. At this point I went to run the Osprey software, and got an error about device not found.  Ultimately, it turned out that
the drivers weren't installed (duh, I didn't install them), see step 2.b.

George asked is we could make a backup copy of the drive, so, step 9:

11. Create backup version of the drive.  Hooked up the new drive and a blank, booted using Knoppix (iso version of Linux), then as root
used dd to copy the drive over.  Format was something like "dd if=/dev/hda of=/dev/hdb"  with hda being the drive with the install on it,
hdb get's overwritten.  Don't confuse them, dd isn't going to tell you if you're doing something stupid.

I went ahead and put the drive copy in the Osprey computer right next to the disk we're running with.  Keeps it from getting lost.

*POST INSTALL*

Imai indicated he was having a problem with the system.  The problem turned out to be that the osprey config file was pointing at the com ports
number 5 and 6.  The com ports had installed with the label 3 & 4.  So I went into the hardware manager, opened up the properties for each,
selected the "settings" tab, clicked on the advanced button, and re-numbered the ports.  Seemed to work, however note this:  OBVIOUSLY AT THIS POINT
THE CHANGE ISN'T ON THE BACKUP DRIVE, SO IF THE FIRST DRIVE CRASHES, IT NEEDS TO BE DONE ON THE SECOND DRIVE!!!