[SunRescue] Sony CDU-55s

[Geoffrey S. Mendelson]

Matthew Haas wrote:
> Good morning.
> 
> I have had this 2X Sony drive kicking around for a while. It's currently
> sitting in a 411 case, of which I would like to eventually use as a
> semi-portable CD-ROM drive for Suns. The only problem is that the drive
> will not boot off CDs. I am assuming it is due to it being in 2048 byte
> block mode? 
> 
> The prom recognizes the drive, the drive in fact works. It also starts the
> boot off CD-ROM-
> 
> With Debian Linux it brings up the initial screen, but it always fails to
> load the boot kernel
> 
> With Solaris 2.5.1 it seems to start booting, but no messages appear on
> the screen and it just sits there.
> 
> Can this drive be adapted to use 512 byte blocks? 

The drive must be address 6 and you must boot it the the "boot cdrom"
command. 

The "boot cdrom" command as opposed to the "boot sd(0,6,2)" command
(or it's equivalent) issues a mode-set command to switch the drive to
512 byte blocks. Most Sony, almost all Toshiba, and AFIK no NEC drives 
support this command.

AFIK the only way to change a Sony CD-ROM to boot with a sun that does
not support the "boot cdrom" command is to replace the ROM in the drive.

The command was added about the time the IPC mutated into the IPX,
the SLC mutated into the ELC, etc.

YMMV, check the FAQ.

Geoff.

-- 
Geoffrey S. Mendelson
Tel:  (03) 6944-211  Fax: (03) 6944-225 Email: gsm at bfr.co.il