[SPARCbook] What to do when create no-restore? fails! [Add to FAQ please!]

[Sunder]

Please add this to the SPARCbook FAQ's:

Executive summary: if create no-restore? fails, use boot -a and hit enter
on every prompt except the kernel.  For this, type in kernel/unix


Geek version:

Hey guys, I had a little crash after installing Sol7 on my new
disk.  Basically I installed Solaris 7, and after the reboot, installed a
whole ton of GNU utilities.

During that time I also applied the latest recommended patch cluster from
sunsolve.sun.com.

Once I was done, I told the Sparcbook to shutdown using the CDE interface,
and it just locked up at the "Shutdown" dialog box with the "Shutdown
button" depressed.

As it was really truly late last night and I was tired, I didn't wait past
four minutes as it look crashed, so I powered off.

When I booted it up this morning, it was stuck at the usual "Attempting to
restore system, failed, please do a normal boot."  This was likely due to
the fact that I shut down hard, and the file system wasn't too happy.

I've tried the create no-restore? trick several times, both during the
system banner (Tadpole logo with memory and ROM info) and during the big
screen with red text saying "SPARCBook" on it.

No go.  The OBP accepted my create no-restore? command, but back I was at
the CPR error once more.

Not even boot disk -r worked.  I did find a trick around this.  Doing an
interactive boot, (boot -a) worked like a charm.  Do boot -a, and the Open
Boot Prom will interactively ask you information about the boot paths.

The kernel path will show up as simply "cprboot" this is the one you'll
want to change to "kernel/unix" and then it will work just fine.  Leave
the others to their defaults.  Just hit enter.

I've tried boot disk kernel/unix but this didn't work.  I know there's a
way to pass the kernel name as a parameter to the boot command, anyone
remember what it is?

(I actually used boot disk -a -s -v in my case.  -a goes into
interactive mode, -s single user mode, -v is verbose.  Once in single user
mode, I ran fsck -y to fix the file systems, and then exited to let it
boot normally.  That did the trick.)