[SunRescue] Booting from CDROM on a Sparcstation IPX

[Gregory Leblanc]

Please don't send HTML email, some mail clients don't like it, and it takes
up far more space than is worthwhile in my mailbox.  :-)

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Tom Yarrish [mailto:tom at yarrish.com]
> Sent: Monday, May 08, 2000 7:31 PM
> To: rescue at sunhelp.org
> Subject: [SunRescue] Booting from CDROM on a Sparcstation IPX
> 
> Greetings all,
> I've inherited a Sparcstation IPX, and I want to install the 
> SPARC version of Debian (2.1) on it.  This is partially due 
> to the fact that the person I received it from has no idea 
> what the root password is, and when I boot up the system, it 
> won't mount any drives (I haven't looked into that part yet).
> One thing I was wondering is if the order of the devices in 
> the SCSI chain matters. Here are the devices I have:
>  
> Main unit with a floppy drive (I'm assuming an internal hard 
> drive as well) 
> Second external hard drive SCSI ID 2

That's as good a place as any.

> External CDROM drive with caddy SCSI ID 3

That's not a good place for it.  The internal disk on this machine is
probably either ID 1 or ID 3, I can't remember what the "default" was.  The
"default" ID for CDROM drives is 6.  This is important, because that's where
it expects to find the CDROM drive when it's going to boot.

> External Tape Drive (not hooked up yet) SCSI ID 4

I think this is the default, but I don't have any tape drives, so who knows.
:)

> A unit that looks like a tape drive without the drive door SCSI ID 5

This could be another external HD, I'm not sure.  Check the case for
identifying marks, or try to open it up.  If it's a 411 case, look at the
archives for this list for instructions.  

> Essentially, this is the message I get on the screen:
> Boot Device: /sbus/esp at 0, 800000/sde at 3,0    File and args:
> Illegal Instruction

That says (to me, anyway) that it's trying to boot from SCSI ID 3, with no
parameters passed to the kernel, and it's failing.  Uh, not sure what
Illegal Instruction means.  It could be a problem with 2 disks thinking that
they're both ID3.

> Type b(boot), c(continue), or n(new command mode)
> >
> (so I type "boot cdrom" at the prompt)

That won't help, because you're in the "old" command mode.  The syntax for
the old mode is more like b (0,6,0) to point it to SCSI ID 6 (that syntax
may be wrong, check the SHR on www.sunhelp.org).  Try typing n <CR> and then
boot cdrom, once you've moved the CD to ID 6.  I suppose that you could try
it with the CD where it is now, but I doubt that they previous owner knew
enough to change the name "cdrom" to point to ID 3 instead of 6.
> 
> Then I get:
> Rebooting with command: oot cdrom
> Boot device: /sbus/esp at 0, 800000/sde at 3,0    fstype 4.2
> root on /sbus/esp at 0, 800000/sde at 3,0    fstype 4.2
> Boot: oot
> Boot: lookuppn failed: No such file or directory (errno 2)
> copen: bad vn_open
> boot failed
> root on /sbus/esp at 0, 800000/sde at 3,0    fstype 4.2
> Boot:
> I do have the SCSI chain terminated on the SCSI ID 5 device.
> 
> If anyone could provide some assistance I would really appreciate it.

I think it's just mad because you're not giving it commands that it
understands.  Try going into the new command mode, and then try 'ok boot
cdrom' again.  Later,
	Grego