[geeks] E450 - continuing Solaris install saga

[Cory Smelosky]

On 15 Apr 2013, at 14:33, "JP Hindin" <jplist2008 at kiwigeek.com> wrote:

>
> Greetings;
>
> I thought I'd update the list after a week of fiddling about with my E450.
> After intense negotiations with the optical media device, I have stumbled
> upon the incantation required to make it accept the Solaris boot CD and
> successfully booted off it.
> I foolishly assumed that Solaris 10 was not, in fact, still stuck in 1979
> and the installer could format/partition/label a disk as it went. After
> discovering I was nothing but a hopeless romantic regarding this notion, I
> figured out to 'format' when the installer puked back to a term and have
> completed the disc one install and had the E450 reboot and boot off its
> internal disk to complete the installation.
>
> I am now struggling with a new problem. Upon boot, Solaris attempts to
> continue the OS install and is asking for "Solaris 10 2" (or something
> worded similarly vaguely), which I am assuming means it is referring to
> disc two of the set of five...  unfortunately it refuses to acknowledge
> that ANY of the five discs are, in fact, whichever disc it is looking for.
> Keeping in mind this is my SECOND Solaris install ever (the first being a
> single-disc SunOS 4.1.4), I don't suppose someone could suggest to me what
> I should be giving it... or telling it?
>
> In reference to the optical device, and my first eMail regarding it
> complaining about a bad magic number and it's unwillingness to eject, I've
> discovered several oddities. While it won't boot off the DVD I have, it
> WILL boot off the CD... this suggests my burned Solaris DVD is not kosher.
> However, the 'ejectathon' issue continues to boggle me. It will not eject
> the tray when in OpenBoot - however, if I use the force-eject tool and
> pull the tray fully out, it WILL retract the tray when the button is
> pressed. The drive will spin the disc up, and then within a few seconds,
> eject the tray again on its own. It will do this regardless of what disc
> is inserted. The only way to convince it not to do this is to told my hand
> against the tray to stop it ejecting the tray - but with not so much force
> that I misalign things, or else the drive decides its failed and powers
> down. If held with appropriate force, for appropriate time, it will spin
> the disc up and read.
>
> Ah, 'so the DVD drive is clinically insane' you say. I popped the CD drive
> I had used successfully and flawlessly to do my SunOS 4.1.4 into the E450.
> And it suddenly exhibits identical behaviour! Amazing.
>
> Well. There it is. Oh, and while I was waiting for the E450 to install, I
> pulled a pair of E4000s out. One of them I can't break out of its
> incessant 'boot from net' to talk to OBP, the other has a firmware
> password. Anyone know the local RAM locations of the password set flag in
> the NVRAM so I can clear it with an Arduino? :P

I work around that by plugging in an ethernet cable and then unplugging it
once it starts to boot.

>
> - JP
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