[SunHELP] cannot get disk to boot automatically on power-up or boot command

[Edwin Tan]

hello all,

i recently installed solaris 7 on a sparcstation ipc.  before the
software install, the nvram was dead and so being a poor and starving
student, i changed the battery on the chip rather than buy a
replacement.  not to deviate from my real problem, but just want to let
others out there who are thinking of changing the battery, there are a
few docs out there which tell you how to do it but all come with
conflicting info.

anyway, i'm talking about the polarity of the battery terminals leading
from the battery to the nvram part.  one doc said that the terminal
closest to pin 12 on the chip is positive and the other terminal, hence
is negative.  i read another doc saying the opposite.  well, i had to
try it both ways and the real answer is that terminal closest to pin 12
is negative and the other is positive.  now, i don't know if that is
different on the 48t02 and the 48t12 chip, but i used the 49t12 chip.

back to my problem.  so i had to reprogram the nvram with the ethernet
and host id info which was quite straighforward.  then i booted from
cdrom, solaris 7 installed with no problem.  during the install, i had
warning messages saying the eeprom parameter has changed since now i
want the ipc to boot from disk. i remember the person who donated the
ipc told me it used to boot from the network.

ok, so after the install, it did boot from the network.

Rebooting with command
Boot device: /sbus/le at 0, c00000
Timeout waiting for RARP/ARP packet

and i did the following to reprogram the new parameter
stop-A
setenv boot-device /sbus/esp at 0, 800000/sd3,0

since i knew my disk was scsi bus 3.  i knew it was /sbus/esp at 0,
800000/sd3,0 since i had to do a manual boot disk command for it to boot
from disk and the boot device shown was the /sbus/esp at 0... string.

i then listed the parameters to make sure the new boot-device was stored
in the nvram and it was.  however, when i reissued the boot command
again, it still wanted to boot from /sbus/le at 0... and not from my disk. 

i also tried

/sbus/esp/sd at 3,0
disk 

as other parameters but it still did'nt like it.

the other parameters i checked were, boot-file = vmunix

would anyone know what else i have to do or what i did wrong, thanks
again much...

ed tan
etan at ece.rochester.edu