You will need to run the Vrepair.nlm, when your Novell server boots and does not know its name or you are unable to access a volume that was previously available. If you get an error that a drive has been deactivated, you will have to reboot (power off and on) the server and any external chassis to re-start the drive. If you continue to get an error stating a drive is unavailable, you may have a physical problem with a harddrive or harddrive controller which will need to be repaired before you can continue. Vrepair fixes errors causes by improperly shutting down the system or because the has a corrupted error file. Vrepair is designed to fix problems with Novells FAT and directory entries that were not updated from the memory cache when someone shuts down the server without Downing it first or a power failure causes the server to be shut down. It can also be set to purge files when the error file becomes unusable.

To run Vrepair and repair a volume follow this procedure. If the server boots ok but does not mount a volume other then SYS, skip to step three:

1. The server will most likely come up and prompt you for a server name. Type in ANY name, at least 2 characters, because it is only TEMPORARY.

2. You will now be prompted for a network number. Here also use any 2 character number, it is only TEMPORARY.

3. Now you should be returned to a Colon prompt ( : ). At this prompt you will need to load the VRepair program. If you do not have a colon prompt, change to the Console screen by executing a Ctrl-Esc and entering the number to choose the Console screen. To do this there are 2 methods. A) Type LOAD C:VREPAIR or try LOAD VREPAIR. B) IF this does not work then you will have to backtrack by DOWNING the server to enable you to go to the hard-drive to do a directory to find the VREPAIR.NLM file. If it STILL can not be found then you will need to instruct the customer to find their copy of Novell software so VREPAIR.NLM can be loaded from the disk or copied the Novell startup directory on the C: drive of the server. If indeed you do need to extract the program from disk then redo steps #1 and #2 then at step number 3 at the colon prompt type in the following, LOAD A:VREPAIR. NOTE: If you are dealing with Novell 3.12 then the VREPAIR.NLM utility will be on System disk #1. If you are dealing with Novell 3.11 then the VREPAIR.NLM utility will be on System disk #2.

4. If all the above steps were followed then at this point the customer will have the VREPAIR menu in front of them. Select option number 1, repair volume. Note: If you were unable to mount SYS because of a corrupted file (invalid deleted file) then you will need to go to options and set Vrepair to Purge deleted files.

5. When it stops on its first error, select F1 for change options.

6. Select the option to NOT pause on each error.

7. Now select the option to continue.

8. When finished VREPAIR will prompt the option to write errors to disk, answer "YES". Note: You MUST answer " YES " to correct your problems, if you do not then the utility will not repair the needed volume.

9. Return to step #4a to re-run VREPAIR and continue through as previous. Run VRepair multiple times until it returns without ANY errors. If you get an error that you have run out of memory, continue with Vrepair. This message will clear and eventually you will get no errors.

10. When Vrepair reports no errors, select exit the VREPAIR menu.

11. Down the server and Exit to c:\server.312

12. Reboot the server. You can power it off and then on again or type SERVER from c:\server.312. It will now come up normally with the correct name and mount all volumes.