Re: booting from CD on Alphastation 255

["Rob Dupcak" <rob.dupcak@amd.com>]

It almost sounds like SRM is set to autoboot.  Experts out there might know of a 
different method to get around autoboot, but the only reliable method I ever 
could get to work was to disconnect the hard drive - at that point the boot 
would fail and it would fall back to SRM.

(Some people claim to have luck with madly hitting CTRL-C before it starts 
booting - but I've never had that work.)

Once in SRM, you need to do "set auto_action halt", this should then make sure 
that the next time you start up, you end up at the SRM prompt and can then 
follow all the usual directions of how to boot off of CD.

- Rob

Toni L. Harbaugh-Blackford [Contr] wrote:
> Oliver:
>
> On Thu, 31 Mar 2005, Oliver Kiddle wrote:
>
>   > We've got an old Alphastation 255 and wanted to install Debian on it. I
>   > downloaded rc3 of the new installer and burnt it to CD. Trouble is that
>   > it doesn't automatically boot from the CD. When I turn the machine on,
>   > it goes straight into OpenVMS. I can see the boot command on the console
>   > but it never stops with a prompt. Is there some key combination I need
>   > to prevent it booting from the hard disc?
>   >
>
> Did you specify the cdrom device on your boot command line at the console?
>
> If you just did 'b' in response to the console prompt, the alpha
> boots from the device in the environment variable 'bootdef_dev',
> which is probably your VMS system disk.
>
> Toni
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------
> Toni Harbaugh-Blackford                   harbaugh@abcc.ncifcrf.gov
> System Administrator
> Advanced Biomedical Computing Center (ABCC)
> National Cancer Institute
> Contractor - SAIC/Frederick