HyLor Blog

Well, not really. But exam results are still a good ego boost ;)

Thanks to Trika and her Microsoft Learning Team.

UPDATE:

The Microsoft transcript has already been updated, and you can order your Welcome Kits and downloads the logos:

Today i’ve tried to setup a new LPAR on our 9407-515. A small test LPAR, with a minimum amount of resources a allocated. Just a disk controller for the OS, and one for the optical drive to do installations. It all went smooth, booted from the optical drive, and then i’ve tried to install the LIC.

It failed with the following error message:

                  Install Licensed Internal Code - Error

Error:
   A device could not be selected to be the load source.

   Return to Dedicated Service Tools and run diagnostics
   to determine why a device could not be selected.
   Correct the problem and install the Licensed Internal Code
   again.

I checked the LPAR Configuration, checked the System Plan, recreated config in the System Planning tool, but all of them said it should work. I checked the disks inside the very limited pre-paging DST, but didn’t find anything wrong.

I posted to the Midrange-L, describing my problem. Not having much experience with LPARs, i expected myself to have set some silly flag wrong.

After a bit discussion with a few helpful repliers, it seemed that there wasn’t anything obviously wrong with my configuration. I checked the schematics again, and digged deeper into the limited DST, but still didn’t find anything. I called IBM hardware support, and he guided me through the limited DST again - then i suddenly saw it: “IO Bus: 1″. The disks were attached to the second channel of the SCSI RAID controller, rendering them unbootable but otherwise completely healthy.

I deactivated the partition, moved the machine out on the drawer and checked the cabling. Yep, it was definitively in the wrong SCSI Port of the adapter. I replugged it, moved the machine back and actived the partition. After a bit of waiting i was able to install the LIC.

Today and yesterday went by pretty well. We’ve spent a lot of time working on the exams and the only bad thing about it is that i can’t write about all the juicy details here (NDA).

One of the really good parts about it was that you could hook up with other people that also have A LOT of knowledge about and enthusiasm about their work.

Especially when talking about Microsoft technologies, nobody at my company wants to argue with me. This was different here, and i really enjoyed that.

It’s also great to see that Microsoft exams are a lot of hard work and a huge investment by Microsoft in order to provide up to date and accurate tests.

Keep in mind that when you make a Comment at a Beta Exam / Exam that they’ll be read by real people - they DO make a difference. So whenever you do not like a question for any reason, make a comment. It counts.

So, what now? It’s 1500 here right now, so i’ll try to find a few fun things to do before going to sleep. The same goes for tomorrow morning, my flight leaves at tomorrow 1600. And i’ll be back in Switzerland on Sunday 1200.