Re: yaboot failure on external drive

[Shawn H Corey <shawnhcorey@gmail.com>]

On Sun, 28 Mar 2010 13:44:46 -0400
Greg Ward <greg@gerg.ca> wrote:

>     yaboot-installer: mkofboot: Please add ofboot=<path> where <path>
> is the OpenFirmware path to /dev/sda2 to /etc/yaboot.conf
> 
>     Well that sounds straightforward... /dev/sda is my firewire disk
> (the internal disk is /dev/hda -- this Mac is pre-SATA).  So now I
> need to figure out how to say "/dev/sda2" in OpenFirmware's syntax.
> I'll go off and do the obvious google'ing, but any hints are welcome.

You will need ybin to transfer any changes to /dev/yaboot.conf to the
boot partition.

Below is an excerpt from an article I wrote on how to boot from USB.
USB are mounted as /dev/sdx devices, so it may help.

HOWTO Boot PowerMacs From A USB Drive In Open Firmware
    The BIOS for PowerMacs is Open Firmware. It is the only way to boot
the machine for anything but the hard disk or the CDROM.

    Note: Some older G3 models can access Open Firmware via an external
    terminal. If you have one of these, you need an external terminal or
    another PC that can emulate one.

    Note: You may want to print this out before you start.

  Accessing Open Firmware
    To access Open Firmware (OF): Plug in the USB drive before you
reboot. Reboot the machine and between the chime and the first screen,
hold down the "opt + cmd + o + f" keys. You should see the OF prompt.

             ok
            0 >

  Determining The USB Drive
    List all the devices on the machine. Write down the ones with "usb".

    Note: *This is from my machine. YMMV*

            0 > dev / ls
            ...
            ff972e78:    /usb@18
            ff9a4fa8:      /mouse@1
            ff97ab00:    /usb@19
            ff9a4f80:      /disk@1
            ...

    In this case, the USB drive is "/usb@19". Write it down.

  Using the Device Alias
    OF has aliases for the device to make using them easier. Find the
alias of the USB drive.

            0 > devalias
            ...
            usb1                  /pci@f2000000/usb@19
            ...

    In this case, it's "usb1". Write it down.

  Booting The USB Drive
    The "boot" commands boots the machine.

            0 > boot usb1/disk@1:2,\yaboot

    After a bit, you should see the "boot.msg" you stored in the USB.
Choose the boot image you want to start. To get a listing of all the
images, press "TAB".

  To Boot The Hard Disk
    To boot from the hard disk in OF, use:

            0 > boot hd:,\\:tbxi


-- 
Just my 0.00000002 million dollars worth,
  Shawn

Programming is as much about organization and communication
as it is about coding.

I like Perl; it's the only language where you can bless your
thingy.

Eliminate software piracy:  use only FLOSS.