On Fri, 14 May 2004 20:08:58 -0500 (CDT)
Dave Dunfield <dave04a_at_dunfield.com> wrote:
> Hi Gang,
>
> Recently acquired an old Sun SPARCstation-1.
> It boots! - but I don't know the root password - Guy who gave it do me
> did so because he was moving, and I can't locate him now.
>
> Got Solaris 2.6 CD/docs with it, so I figured I'd just reinstall a
> fresh system.
>
> Can't get it to boot from CD.
> When I power on the system, hit STOP-A to get to the boot prompt,
> then do:
> boot sd(0,6,2)
>
> It thinks a while, then I see one access to the CD, and I get the
> message:(From memory so not exact quote but pretty close):
>
> "The magic character in the label is incorrect. The file loaded, but
> it
> does not appear to be executable".
>
> Tried everything I can think of, but this is the only response I am
> able to get which involves any CD activity at all.
>
> Same procedure works perfectly on a Sparc-2 - boots right up off the
> CD.
>
> I'm assuming that this CD works on the Sparc-1, because A) it came
> from the same source at the same time (not a guarantee), and B) It's
> GOT Solaris 2.6 already booting on it (I just can't login) - I'm
> guessing that it was installed from this CD.
>
> Also tried a Solaris 2.7 CD that I have onhand - exactly the same
> result.
>
> Anyone have any insight to offer?
>
There's a pretty good bunch of info on booting old Sparc boxes in the
text of the Installation instructions for NetBSD/Sparc. It sorts things
out, talking a lot about various versions of OpenBoot ROMs, etc. I used
it to figure out booting my first Sparc IPC machine back in the day. It
can be obtained right in the download tree of any Sparc port of NetBSD,
from ftp.netbsd.org.
Here's a direct url to one of the newest versions of the file:
ftp://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/NetBSD-1.6.2/sparc/INSTALL.txt
It's useful info wether you're installing NetBSD or not.
Have you done all the standard things from the OBP like the probe-scsi
command to know for sure the drive is there and at the SCSI ID you
expect it at?
Received on Sun May 16 2004 - 16:29:07 BST