Re(2): [SunRescue] SS2 Problems

Mahesh Babbar nova!hclhpb14!mbabbar at hclinsys.com
Wed Aug 4 01:45:18 CDT 1999


Dear Tim,

O.K. Now after replacing the  battery , how would you put the data into the
NVRAM e.g. Ethernet Address, hostid so on and so forth.

Regards,

Mahesh
-----Original Message-----
From: nova!STEV.net!Tim_Hauber (Tim Hauber) <nova!STEV.net!Tim_Hauber (Tim
Hauber)>
To: rescue at ohno.mrbill.net <rescue at ohno.mrbill.net>
Date: Friday, July 23, 1999 11:03 AM
Subject: Re(2): [SunRescue] SS2 Problems


>rescue at sunhelp.org,Internet writes:
>>Even with the bad IDPROM you can get the system to boot.
>>By default it is trying to boot off of the net.
>>Assuming that you have a single hard drive in the unit, that drive will be
>>either disk0 or disk3.
>>from the OK prompt type :
>>boot disk -- if this does not work, try:
>>boot disk0 -- or
>>boot disk3 -- one of these should work if you have a bootable drive.
>>You can type : devalias from the OK prompt to see a list of what the
>>device
>>names are.
>>also the setting that has been lost is:
>>boot-device    -- so the command to reset this which will probably be lost
>>(bad IDPROM)
>>setenv boot-device disk
>>or disk0 or disk3
>>this should get you to boot off of the internal hard drive...
>>jeff///
>
>This is a symptom of Sun's philosophy about workstations.  The machines
>have two boot modes, the normal one (which is usually local disk) and the
>diagnostic one, which happens when you either boot to diag mode
>intentionally, or the machine finds errors trying to boot.  The ROM
>default for diag mode is to netboot, which is what your machine is trying
>to do.  When you get the NVRAM problem resolved, you can actually set the
>diag mode boot to be from another local partition (I believe, from playing
>with NVRAMS  with a friend) so the machine will try to boot from your
>normal partition, but if it can't it will try from a backup partition you
>set up.  These things can be extremely resilient if set up properly, as
>close to unstoppable as a computer can get.
>
>The NVRAM problem is most easily solved by replacing, but if you are a
>cheapskate you can hack the one you have.  Normally all that is wrong is a
>dead internal battery, and with a hacksaw (no pun intended) and a
>soldering iron you can substitute an external battery.  I've done this
>with 4 or 5 IPCs and IPXs, and it really isn't difficult.  The battery is
>on the end away from pin 1, be careful of the pin 1 end that has the clock
>crystal on it.  When I did it I even managed to save my first experimental
>one.
>
>Tim Hauber
>
>"Proximity to wonder has blunted our perception and appreciation of it"
>--Tim Hartnell in 'Exploring ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE on your Commodore 64'
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>Rescue maillist  -  Rescue at sunhelp.org
>http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue
>
>








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