[rescue] E420R Booting Issues

[Bryan Gurney]

On Wed, 13 Jul 2005 19:26:49 -0400, Earl D. Baugh Jr. <earl at baugh.org>  
wrote:

> Got yet another question as I start t the config of the E420R I have.     
> I
> got the 2nd processor yesterday, and was finally
> set to start loading the OS on it.    The machine comes on just fine,  
> and I
> had done a Stop-A and had done a probe-scsi
> earlier to see that the drives were visible.  That all returns just fine.
> However, when I do a "boot cdrom" the machine just
> sits there (after doing the memory check...which completes with no errors
> reported).  I've done a reset of the NVRAM to
> defaults, and also set the diag-level to max.    All of which haven't
> changed the behavior at all.   The drives are 2 36GB
> Segates (I believe...I'm at work not home so can't confirm right now).
>
> I tried replacing the cable that goes from the drive area to the
> motherboard.  No difference.  I reseated the cables between
> the DVD and the back of the drive area.  No difference.  I checked what I
> think is the terminator on the end of the DVD cable,
> but it doesn't look like it even could come off.   (I don't have a
> replacement cable for that...)
>
> Any suggestions as to what to try next?   The only other idea I have is  
> to
> unhook the DVD to see if I get a boot image error
> (I don't get that either, btw, if I let it try to boot normally...it sits
> there as well, right after it finished the memory test).  I don't know
> if an external CD would make any difference here (have to check if I had  
> a
> way even to hook one up....)
>
> Earl
> _______________________________________________
> rescue list - http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue


What kind of optical drive is on this thing?  IIRC there's a special block  
size or sector size that needs to be supported in order for the CD-ROM to  
work properly on any Sparc machine.  I have two Ultrasparcs that had the  
original 8X NEC drive, and both of them were dead for differing reasons  
(my Ultra 2's drive had a tray transport system that would lose its place  
and re-eject CD-ROMs now and then, and my Ultra 1 had a drive with a good  
transport, but the drive would just not read the disc sometimes, and not  
turn up as a SCSI device; probably a flaky controller board).  I replaced  
both drives with Plextor drives (one a 8/2/20 CD recorder, and another  
with a 40X reader, but since I don't like how slow the Ultra 1 is, I've  
taken the 40X back into the external enclosure it was sitting in before).