[rescue] Classic wkstsn boot problem

[simon.young at lexmark.co.uk]

Hi,

I have recently acquired a sparc classic workstation, running OS 5.5.
It has a internal hard disk, but no floppy or cd drive (internal or external),
this adds to the problem.
I want to salvage it but it is pre-configured at boot-up to mount a NFS
disk that contains the boot image (I think - I am new to the Unix world). As
this box has come
to me from outside of my network the server it is looking for is not local
obviously..!
So, firstly if I power on the classic as it is,  it posts the following to
screen (abbreviated):

Boot device /iommu/sbus/espdma at 4,8400000/esp at 4,8800000/sd at 3,0

Configuring network interfaces: le0
hostname: hostname

there is a 5 min wait. then the attempted RPC to the nfs mount of /usr fails:

nfs mount: flip:: RPC: RPC bind failure- RPC: timed out
nfs mount: re-trying: /usr

There is a longer pause, I have waited 20 mins with no progress so I then force
it by issuing Ctrl -C to continue:

INIT : Cannot create /var/adm/utmp or /var/adm/utmpx
INIT : Failed to write to utmp and utmpx with entry: "   "

How can I get around this? I have tried the following:

1) Stop A - From the OK prompt I try: 'printenv'. And the system setup shows the
boot device is set to DISK, not NET.
2) Stop A, at the OK prompt issue a 'boot -s'. This does not help, it still
refuses to boot
   from the local disk, I guess as the system is expecting to read the kernel on
the remote mount.
   I get the same output as above, but with this additional stuff:

INIT: SINGLE USER MODE

Press Control d to proceed with normal boot, or give root password for system
maintenance.

This line is then echoed on screen, repeateadly,.. ad nauseum.

At this point I enter the root password and hit enter, the system does not seem
to accept it, though no error is posted.

3) I cant see how to access this Classic to upgrade the OS, or at least start
from a bootable machine. I guess I could
    obtain an external SCSI CD-ROM and "boot cdrom" from the ok prompt maybe?
  Or am I missing something really simple here..?


Any help, greatly appreciated.....


Best regards
Simon