atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums Other TDM Phone Systems Telrad Telephones & Systems ImaGen failing/upgrade

We are currently utilizing an ImaGen voicemail system with our Telrad Digital Key PBX. The issue we are having with the ImaGen is the PC hardware is aging and unreliable. The system has failed to re-boot several times with errors on the harddrive and the floppy drive. My current support for the system says that the PC portion of the ImaGen cannot be replaced or upgraded and that our only solution is to upgrade both our PBX and the Imagen to the latest versions at a cost of appro. $10K. This seems crazy to me. Can I not simply replace the ailing PC hardware and transfer the data from the harddrive to a newer PC without buying all new software and some new hardware?

If you don't want to upgrade the pbx and get a new Emagen, ask your vendor about a refurbished Imagen. Personally, after using and programming the Emagen, I loathe the Imagen. The unified messaging is very nice as well, especially with a fax server and DID's (I get my faxes and voicemails on my blackberry). Look into what you could gain with the upgrade before you saddle yourself with a refurbished vm.

It is not that we don't want to upgrade, but at a cost of 10K, we are not prepared for the cost. We want to get our voicemail back to it's reliable status, then look into our options for upgrading/replacing in the next fiscal year.

Is it NOT possible to simply transfer the data from the HDD and move the card to a newer more reliable platform at a much lower cost? Our system works fine at this point other than the PC hardware issues.

Thank you for your reply, I appreciate it.

[This message has been edited by UVI (edited May 17, 2005).]

Ram and voice boards I've heard of being swapped out. The HDD I'm unsure about. I know with the Emagen if you don't have the EXACT same harddrive from the same manufacturer, then you can't do it. I'm not sure the same applies to the Imagen. The docs seem to suggest that any pc that meets the minimum requirements will work, but having never tried any of this I'd be hesitant without some tech support. Anybody out there more experienced with Imagen have any input?

Can you tell me where you got the minimum requirements information. The system has been in place long before I arrived here, and I have been unsuccessful findong that very information.

And thanks again for your reply.

You will need to load the software on the new machine, if you mirror it you will have startup problems, other then that you can put it on a different system. You will loose all mail box's and messages and will have to set up the Imagen just like a new unit.

You need 486 Intel or compatible with dos 6.2
The rest of the specs on the machine is in the imagen install manuals.

So let me understand this.

Are you saying that if I mirror the hard drive I will have starup problems and that the only way to avoid them is do to a complete reinstall of the software, in which case I will lose all current mailboxes and messages?

You can try a mirror but I have never seen it work right, it will have startup problems and half the time it won't see the cards. When a new install is done with the software it works every time.

You can give it a shot, as long as you have your old machine working you have nothing to loose.

[This message has been edited by dtmf (edited May 17, 2005).]

My thoughts exactly. If I simply mirror the drive and make it the primary, then try a reboot that should give me a good indication as to the feasibility of the whole project. If it works, I can then move the drive to a more reliable PC.

Thanks for your time, it truly is appreciated.

Brian

See what I miss by being out in the field. Brian what ver is the software and what ver is in the system. Telrad stopped using the ImaGen almost 5 yrs ago due to the AVC/DVC cards need ISA slots and ofcorse new features that are answered very well with the EmaGen. And finding motherboards with ISA's is a task. Depending on the software ver you need to stay in the 486 class of processors as P2 or P3 can make the voice prompts sound like mickey mouse. The next thing you find on these older PC's is the power supplies going bad. I have 3 ImaGen PCs here all with bad power supplies. Drop me a email lets see if there are other options for you.

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ssimpson@oneringtelecom.com Need a Telrad Programmer Kit? Telrad Programmer Kits

Yep, gonna be hard to find the old stuff. I was assuming he/she has a older 486 pc. they can use.

I didn't read all the posted Msseages so I don't know if anyone suggeated this.

Just replace the 3/14 drive and the hard drive.

You'll have to started from scracth on the Voicemail side but it's not that bad to record the MSG again and tell everyone to clean out there mailboxes. It's happen pleanty of times to me.

You can't replace the motherbraod. That broad is special for the voice card.

If you try to uses another Mother broad it won't see the voice card. But it don't sound like a mother broad issus.
Try scandisk and defrag 1st.

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Need cable or other voice/data hardware? Here's your link. Telephone Supplies

I have had plenty of hard drive failures over the years. If start a new disk drive with DOS then transfer the programming it will work. Putting dvc cards into another pc with isa boards can also be done you just have to make sure you have access to change irq 10 and 15.

Thank you everyone for your replies. My knowledge is being enhanced with every reply, I truly appreciate it.

We are currently exploring alternative soultions to our issue, but if we diecide to "fix" the system we have these replies will be invaluable.

Do I understand you correctly that to get the cards working in a different PC, or more specifically, on another motherboard, I will need access to the bios with the ability to assign irq 10 & 15 properties other than 'normal' default settings?

Can you be more specific?

This must be the week of Dead ImaGen's. I have had 4 calls this week. As Jay said you can use a different mother board just the hard part is to find a "new" 486 DX2 80 with 2 or more ISA slots. And harddrives small enough to load DOS 6.22 on. But heres a question not directed at anyone but just to think about. What PC are you using on your desk top right now? And how many thousands of time has it been accessed remotly and how critical it is to you business? Telrad has answered the PC issue with a inskin onboard voicemail. Software upgrades for the system and voicemail are free to the dealer and other than the labor to do the upgrade should be free to the end user.


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ssimpson@oneringtelecom.com Need a Telrad Programmer Kit? Telrad Programmer Kits

I believe the setting is to be set at "reserved" and the size of the drive doesnt matter as long as you put on the delimiter pin on the hard drive

Your carzy If you want to try and replace the PC. Just change the drives.

And record the MSG again.

The IRQ 10 and 15 or what ever there are, won't see that DVC broad if you have an LE mach. If your a PC guy, maybe you can figure it out but some Motherbroads see the dvc card some don't. And this is 1/2 the reason Telrad is into the E-magen. JUST CHANGE THE HARD DRIVE. Save yourself alot of time.

I would love to get into to it but just change the hard drive and someone on this web site will send you the software for the IVM. 6.XX or what ever version you want.

You can't just find a mother board for this card. and if you do TELL ME WHERE YOU GOT IT.

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Need cable or other voice/data hardware? Here's your link. Telephone Supplies

I do agree with Tony if the only thing thats going bad is the hard drive just replace it.
For replacing the computer I have to go to schools that are getting rid of old computers to see if they can be used, just because it has ISA slots doesnt mean it can be configured for the cards

I finally got the Digital400 system up and running at our church. Thanks to the folks in this forum who helped with suggestions & software.

A few weeks ago- shortly before I was scheduled to put the first users on the system, we had a several-hour power outage which outlasted our UPS. So the Digital400 and the Imagen PC got powered down.
Since then, I would get occasional errors or lockups when the weekly disk defragger would run. Thinking I might be in the early stages of a disk failure, I decided to build a backup Imagen PC. I had a spare 4 port DVC card, and a 266 Mhz Pentium II PC with two ISA slots. I formatted the disk and installed DOS 6.22, and then installed the Imagen 5.0D software. So far, so good, except, as forecasted in this forum, the DVC card was not recognized. I checked the IRQ settings in the BIOS, and discovered that all of the IRQs were configured to the PCI slots. When I pointed IRQ10 and IRQ15 to the ISA slots, the card was recognized! I hooked it up to the Digital 400 system, and it worked fine. The voice prompts were the proper speed & pitch, and I could see no problems with it. So, it IS possible to make an Imagen from a Pentium-class PC. This particular one was made by Tangent, and had an AMI BIOS.
I left both IRQ10 & 15 pointed at the ISA slots. I don't know if both of them were needed or not. Has Telrad ever published a specification for which IRQs are used by the DVC card(s)?

I did go back to the old Imagen PC, and ran the detailed surface scan option of Scandisk. Even though it found no new bad clusters, it has worked just fine since. So, I am still using the original Imagen PC. But now I feel better knowing that I have a spare if I need it.

Larry