If you are not able to boot your D3 or Advanced Pick System
and you do not have a current file-save tape. All is not lost
and your data may still be intact on the disk, but a corrupted
System Control Block, Overflow Table or System pointers
prevent access to your data.
We have successfully retrieved data for dozens of customers
that found themselves in what appeared to be a hopeless
situation. Here are a few letters
from businesses that contacted us after exhausting all other
resources.
Our number one focus and goal is to:
- Boot the system.
- Do a File-save to tape or Pseudo
Floppy.
- Perform a Full Restore
from the save tape we just made to rebuild the Overflow
Table and lay the data down on disk. This will insure
that all the File Control Blocks,
Pointers and System flags are intact. This will also give
us one large block of contiguous frames of Overflow.
Procedures: Using the Pick Virtual
Debugger or Monitor Debugger
we can get vital information from frame 12 or frame 1 to
locate the MDS (System Master
Dictionary) Base and the
Modulo.
This will lead us to the MDS
File Control Block or FCB. If we
find that the MDS pointer or the MDS FCB is corrupted. The fix
could be to simply rebuild the FCB or pointer and the system
will boot. If the MDS FCB, pointer and flags are intact. We
then follow the MDS base to locate the pointer to the DM
account FCB. If the pointer is corrupted or missing then we
may be able to rebuild the pointer. If we find that the
pointer is correct and is in fact pointing the DM FCB, then
the DM FCB may be corrupted and we can rebuild it. Once we
have established that the DM FCB is intact we can follow the
DM base to find the users, pibs, devices, File-of-Files etc...
We literally make sure that the system is following the
correct path and that all the corruption is cleaned up. We
took the time to briefly explain what is involved to give you
a better understanding and what to expect from .
If
the System FCB is corrupted
beyond repair and the pointers have been wiped out,
all
hope is still not lost...yet.
We all know that the chances are good that the
data is still on the disk, but the entrance door to the data
is blocked. Logic tells us that we will be able to access the
data if we unblock the entrance door or we create another
door. We have discovered a couple ways to create a new door.
If we do a Restore with Pick
base files (Not your data) a new door will be created.
Provided we do not have a hardware issue to deal with, we will
be able to boot Pick and logon without any problem. But the
pointers to your accounts and files will be overwritten with
Pick account and file pointers. If we can find the base and
modulo to your accounts above the High
Water Mark. We can build pointers to your accounts. We
must be very careful at this point because all the data above
the High Water mark is used as overflow
and we do not want the system to use your data as overflow or
your data will be gone for ever. To prevent this from
happening we must first change the High Water Mark with the Virtual
Debugger so that system thinks that there is only 5 to 10
thousand frames of available disk space left. If the Base and
Modulo to your accounts and files are not known or cannot be
found. We have a few programs that we can run on your system
that will scan the entire disk and load the File-of-files
with FCB's that were found. Once we locate an account FCB and
build a pointer to it, all the files within that account will
be pointed to and may still be saved or it may be possible
that we may find out the files themselves need repair and we
can start working on them.
The "Data Recovery Call" scenarios that we have
been apart of are very similar to each other. Although the
reason for the system not booting may be different. The
urgency of that matter is the same.
You can always restore data from a backup tape, cut your
losses and start working again. But if D3Help
has not been involved with helping you make sure that
file-saves are being done every night without any errors and
the tapes are being verified......
You may find yourself without a good restorable backup
tape. We have helped customers that did File-saves
every night for a year, but were never shown how to verify the
tape with t-verify. One year
goes by without any problems and then one day the system does
not boot. This is the day they find out that all the file-save
tapes are bad and that years worth of data in the system is
gone. They contact us at D3help and
are in a terrible situation and on the verge of loosing their
business.
We have so many success stories we could not possibly list
them here, but we want you to know that we are 99.9% sure
whatever is keeping your system from booting, we have seen
before.
Contact
now, we can help
We keep it simple, no hidden costs, just a
straight 125.00 each hour