Subject: Re: Disappearing Servers

From: James Rice <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat May 17 11:23:53 2003

The same thing happenned to me.  We do medical billing systems.  As we 
were decommissioning an old coax network, people lost the drive mapping 
to some document folders.  As were had been told that only the three 
servers in the old server room were in use, we finally had to trace the 
location by cable segments off the old coax repeaters.  We found the old 
server under a desk in an unused office.  It was a Compaq Deskpro 386 
running Netware 2.15.  Uptime was over  6 years.  Funny, the power 
supply fan was so encrusted with dust that it no longer turned.  The 
supply was too hot to touch, but it was still limping along.  More 
modern equipment would have melted down. 

It turned out that the old occupant of that office had retired four 
years before and he had set up the server as an unauthorized project 
with a booleg copy of the NW 2.15 after the rest of the shop had 
upgraded to 3.x.  Then he was RIFed by early retirement.  No one else 
had even seen the server before or knew it existed.

Tothwolf wrote:

>I know one place I worked "lost" a Novell server for years, but it turned
>up in the corner of someone's office when they finally found it. Yes, it
>was running and being used. The only reason they started looking for it
>was that they were decommissioning it...
>
>-Toth
>
>  
>

-- 
http://webpages.charter.net/jrice54/classiccomp2.html

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From: James Rice <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat May 17 12:03:42 2003

In a large organization I can see how it could happen.  Walls are thrown 
up by a in-house maintance crew or an outside contractor who employes 
relatively unskilled labor  who are not paid to think.... just get the 
job done as quickly as possible.  When I was an apprentice electrician, 
if any apprentice raised a question, relevant or not, you were told to 
shut up and follow orders even if you knew it was a scewup.  Half the 
drywall people I encounter don't even speak english much less have a 
clue about what cable goes where or what it's function is.

James

Vintage Computer Festival wrote:

>On Sat, 17 May 2003, Tothwolf wrote:
>
>  
>
>Sure, this is not as uncommon as one might think.
>
>But lost behind a new wall?  I doubt that anyone could be THAT stupid.  I
>mean, people can exhibit amazing levels of stupidity, but it would be
>incredibly naive to think that someone would take the time to cut out the
>holes and everything necessary to run the cable through, then close off
>the wall.
>
>  
>

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From: Vintage Computer Festival <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun May 18 02:25:39 2003

On Tue, 13 May 2003 [email-masked] wrote:

> On 11-May-2003 JP Hindin wrote:
> > On Sun, 11 May 2003, VaxCat wrote:
> >> The whole oldest computer on the net thread reminded me of a story
> >> a friend told me.
> >
> >> THE AMAZING VANISHING NOVELL SERVER
> > I've seen this before; I wonder about its authenticity - but there's no
> > reason to jump to any conclusions...
>
> This is an urbane legend that I believe to be true.
>
> Google found this :
>         http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/5/18265.html
>
> (this probably isn't a good enough reference to guaranty authenticity,
> though)

I'm still skeptical.  Think of this: what better hack than to fool some
newspaper reporter into doing a story on an old high-tech urban legend?

I'm sure there's a kernel of truth to the story, but it sounds too dumb to
have actually happened like it's told.

-- 

Sellam Ismail                                        Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger                http://www.vintage.org

 * Old computing resources for business and academia at www.VintageTech.com *

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From: Tothwolf <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun May 18 02:26:09 2003

On Sat, 17 May 2003, Vintage Computer Festival wrote:
> I'm sure there's a kernel of truth to the story, but it sounds too dumb
> to have actually happened like it's told.

-Toth

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From: Vintage Computer Festival <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun May 18 02:26:19 2003

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From: "John Allain" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun May 18 02:28:21 2003

> But lost behind a new wall?  
> I doubt that anyone could be THAT stupid.

While I think James is right, its been occuring to me that there
is another _possible_ explanation.  What if you wanted
to bug a network ?  Using out of place technology might
stand out.  An old lost server makes for a better cover story.
Possible in that it's not probable, however.

John A.
also hooked on "The Agency"
New this fall: something else.   :-(

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From: Geoff Reed <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun May 18 02:36:35 2003

>holes and everything necessary to run the cable through, then close off

Behind a wall is entirely possible.  we had a contractor come in at my 
former job, and put up a new wall, they were supposed to put a door in 
another wall (we were partitioning off part of our datacenter.)  they put 
the wall up allright, but didn't put the door into the other wall first, so 
come monday morning we went to get at the 60 machines in that part of the 
datacenter.... and we couldn't...

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From: Chad Fernandez <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun May 18 02:36:55 2003

> holes and everything necessary to run the cable through, then close off

Cut holes?  Probably not..... the server was probably nudged over behind 
a wall under construction.....the wires probably would have been mudded 
over at a corner.  Someone may have even done it to be "funny".

Chad Fernandez
Michigan, USA

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From: Huw Davies <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun May 18 02:38:08 2003

OK, a real true story (yeah, right :-).

In my last job I was responsible for the up time of both systems and 
networks. On day, a significant proportion of the University network went 
down (the network was segmented into Western, Eastern and Central) and it 
was the Western side that went AWOL. As the sciences were on this segment 
it was noticed rather quickly.

Following the tunnels we eventually came to where the Western hub was 
supposed to be, to discover the wall (and hub) were missing. Apparently a 
new lift was being installed in the Library and the wall was in the way - I 
guess the builders didn't notice the large box with the flashing lights and 
cables attached to the wall....

Huw Davies           | e-mail: [email-masked]
Melbourne            | "If soccer was meant to be played in the
Australia            | air, the sky would be painted green"

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From: Vintage Computer Festival <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun May 18 02:39:01 2003

> over at a corner.  Someone may have even done it to be "funny".

I should've guessed that it would be easily possible for new levels of
human stupidity to be reached.

I retract my incredulity.

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