sundance-communications.com/forum Forums TDM Business Telephone Systems NEC Telephones & Systems VMS-F(4)-20 Not Booting up?

Hello, We have an Electra Professional Level II with a VMS-F(4)-20 that has stopped working.

Several weeks ago the voice mail quit. With a combination of removing the card (by the recommended procedure) and powering off and on the system it restarted OK and ran for about 10 days or so. Once again this morning it had stopped responding so again I reset it and it worked for the day. Now (10 hrs later) it won't come back online.

I've pulled the card, removed the drive, put it in a desktop PC and ran a surface scan with scandisk and that reported OK. I was also able to copy the drives contents to a folder on the desktop so am I right concluding that the hard drive is not the issue here?? The scandisk.log and diskerr.log files don't indicate any troubles either, (other than the rare lost cluster recovered to free space). The drive and card have now been re-installed but alas the VM doesn't finish loading it would appear.

Is there any way I can see what is going on while the voice mail attempts to boot? By the leds I can see some hard disk activity for several seconds but then nada.Seems like the process is stopping for reasons unknown. I see talk of cosessions software here and on other boards, will that help in discovering what is going on here, and might someone be willing to send me a copy? (I have the cables)

For now I'll keep reading and try to see if I can come up with anything more to try.

Should the cosession software have come with the system at purchase, or is it an added 'acccesory' ??

I am told that the vendor who sold us the system declined to provide us with cosessions when asked about it at installation.

I've scoured the web looking for Cosessions and only found one listing at https://www.twacomm.com/catalog/dept_id_264/model_0160936.htm but there is no mention of what version ar really anything else about what they are offering. Anyone willing to send us a copy?? The vendor did leave a 3.5" disk and a hand written note in the cabinet that reads "Pro II Backup" and "Version 7.0".

Thanks,

A copy of cosession is shipped with every VMS, so, your vendor is giving you grief & probrably wants you to upgrade. Which is advisable, as NEC announced "end of life" on this product last year. All the parts for this system will be used if you decide to buy them. You will need cosession to connect to the AD-8 VMS to watch the boot process, & possibly get it to recover.

And another thing! The CPU's for this system stop re-charging the database battery after about 5 years, or so... I suggest a back-up of your database...

Which, is what is on those disk's you have, however, they may not be current!

co-sessions will show you what is going on AFTER the 4th led lights up.

as far as does it come with the system. depends on who installed it. it comes with EVERY vm from nec. but whether the installer left it with you or even told you of its existance who knows.


the pro2 backup is just a backup of the phone system i'd bet. he used sat which will let you program/backup the system stuff. i would also be willing to bet that sat is NOT on that floppy either. sat DOES NOT come with every system unlike the vm.

Thanks for the replies,

At the time of installation we saw the tech using software to connect to the VMS, but when we asked about it we were told it was not provided. I guess they think end users don't need to do database backups and other 'regular' maintenance! Maybe I'll give them a call and see if I can shake loose the software from them. I doubt that they'll produce it but it's worth a shot I guess.

Yes, I saw that in the batch file(s) that run this system. Actually have picked up a lot from studying those batch files.

We're a small business that at the moment is a bit low on funds so I'll be doing all I can to extend the life of this system.

I kept fiddling with the thing, shutting it down, removing and reinstalling it and for whatever reason it started up again. Got lucky maybe. I don't expect that it's 'fixed' though. Lacking Cosessions I've modified a copy of the VM.BAT file to have it generate a startup.log file that will detail the startup process for review if the thing fails again. Of course I'll have to remove the card/drive to read out the log file but that's better than standing there looking at the thing and scratching my head! It should at least tell me what's happening during startup and maybe where it's failing.

Thanks Again,