Well, I got many replies, a lot of which pointed me to earlier
summaries and, to my shame, a FAQ. My excuse is that the
answer to question 11 includes information which is not
really an answer to the question.
The important extra information I have to impart is that:
1) the solution in the FAQ does not always work, and
did not in my case, or that of
"Everett Schell" <schell@molbio.cbs.umn.edu>
This is PROBABLY because both he and I are booting from
drives other than sd0 (SCSI target 3). I am checking this
with Sun, but I GUESS that the line "2: cd /sd" needs
to be replaced with an appropriate one for the particular drive.
2) I had been on the right track when I left the first cylinder
out of partition 'a' -- I do not understand WHY it works, but
starting partition 'a' at cylinder 2 solved the problem. Thanks to
"Everett Schell" <schell@molbio.cbs.umn.edu>
Birger.Wathne@vest.sdata.no (Birger A. Wathne)
Thanks also to all of those who tried to help,
Robert M. Kuhn
Director of Computing in Mathematics
Department of Mathematics
Harvard University
1 Oxford Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
(617)-495-1610
kuhn@math.harvard.edu
----- Begin FAQ Answer 11 (extract) -----
Note: Older Wren 7's may not boot on IPX's, ELC's and later machines,
due to a bug in the Wren 7's firmware. Here is a patch to the NVRAM
which must be made from the monitor. Only make this patch if you
have prom revision 2.0 or greater:
(from monitor level)
> n
ok nvedit
0: true to fcode-debug?
1: probe-all install-console banner
2: cd /sd
3: patch 0 1 sstart
4: device-end
5: [ press <control> c to exit nvedit at this point ]
ok nvstore
ok setenv use-nvramrc? true
ok reset
WARNING : It is important that you type this correctly. Check this
several times! Remember all the question marks, dashes
and spaces and yes, sstart should be with two "s"'s.
Note: Syntax errors in your NVRAMRC can make your
machine unbootable. In Prom version 2.x, hitting L1-N
after the selftest at bootup will reset the NVRAM.
(Thanks to nedre@gest20.SINet.SLB.COM for the Wren 7 fix.)
----- End FAQ Answer 11 (extract) -----
----- Begin Original Message -----
>From sun-managers-relay@ra.mcs.anl.gov Thu Jul 15 04:42:07 1993
Sender: sun-managers-relay@ra.mcs.anl.gov
Precedence: bulk
Date: Wed, 14 Jul 93 16:13:16 EDT
From: kuhn@math (Robert M. Kuhn)
Reply-To: kuhn@math (Robert M. Kuhn)
Followup-To: junk
To: sun-managers@eecs.nwu.edu
Subject: Bootblock unable to read label
Content-Length: 1023
X-Lines: 33
After obtaining a loaner disk I'm stumped on getting it booting.
Here's the setup:-
SparcStation 2, no internal disk, SCSI bus with 2 enclosures,
SunCD and Seagate Wren VII as sd3. SunOS 4.1.2 virgin install from CD.
I have booted from CD and installed the OS twice. In between,
the disk has been reformatted, repartitioned to start partition 'a'
at cylinder 1, the label rewritten, but when I try
to boot from the disk I still get
Bootblock: libprom.a: Romvec Version 2
Can't read disk label.
Can't open disk label package
Bootblock startup failed
Illegal Instruction
I can boot from CD, load the miniroot into /dev/sd3g, boot the
miniroot, mount the root and usr partitions. Everything looks
just fine. fsck shows no problems.
I'm stumped. The kicker is, this is a server for a network which
has now been down for 2 days -- help!
Robert M. Kuhn
Director of Computing in Mathematics
Department of Mathematics
Harvard University
1 Oxford Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
(617)-495-1610
kuhn@math.harvard.edu
----- End Original Message -----
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