[rescue] Clear Origin 200 PROM password?

[Brian Nelson]

Thanks to the helpful folks out there.
I seem to have stumbled across something interesting though, which
made clearing the password trivial.

It seems that by having a hard disk with nothing on it  (that an SGI
could make sense of) installed at the defult boot path, funny things
would happen at the prom menu.  If I tried to use the first option
which runs the default boot, it'd fail and drop back to the menu as
one would expect. BUT, for a short period of time, I could use any
other option in the menu without entering the password.  (short, as in
less than a second).  So a quick selection of 5 for the console, a
resetpw, and everything's good to go.

Has anyone else run into anything odd like this (on an SGI or Sun, or
whateve)?
I'm obviously hoping that this isn't some sign of a hardware problem...
Anyway, on to operating systems for me.

Brian Nelson


On 9/8/05, Brian Nelson <nelsonbt2001 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Fellow Rescuers,
> I've just started working on an ebay'd SGI Origin 200 and am stuck
>  on the PROM password.
> I'm at least the third owner of the thing, and the previous owner
> never had the thing up and running (he had no disks or memory), so I
> doubt I'll find out the password through normal means.
>
> I know it's possible to clear the password on an Indigo and an Indy
> with jumpers or pulled ICs (been there, done that), but how about an
> Origin 200?
>
> The only IRIX install I currently have total access to is 6.2 on an
> R5K Indy. Without CDs, is it possible to clone that to something the
> Origin could boot from? And from there use nvram tools within IRIX to
> clear the password?
>
>
> Thanks,
> Brian Nelson
>
> p.s. recommendations on better places to query are appreciated.
>