installation difficulties

[Daniel Freedman <freedman@ccmr.cornell.edu>]

Hi,

I'm trying to install Debian 2.2r0_CDa on a newly-acquired used
SparcStation 5 (110MHz, 256 Mb RAM, 2 Seagate 2.1 Gb HD, Rom Rev. 2.24).
I'm booting off the CD-ROM to start the installation process, and I'm
successfully getting most of the way through (partitioning of disks,
configuration of modules, installation of base, etc.) until I'm asked to
reboot to install the remainder of packages (or first create rescue
floppy if this doesn't work).  I'm not able to create the rescue floppy
(it fails on trying) and the reboot doesn't recognize the boot disk with
the following error:

Boot device:/iommu/sbus/espdma@5,8400000/esp@5,8800000/sd@3,0 File and
args:
Bad magic number in disk label
Can't open disk label package

Can't open boot device


I tried to find reference to this on the mailing list archives and the
closest I found was from Sabino Maggi (maggi@ien.it):

>If you are able to start the installation process by means of, say, the
>rescue/root floppies (or network, cdrom, whatever) then the problem is
>probably that you haven't created a "Sun disk label" when you have
>partitioned your hd (if you need more details, please ask me directly and
>I'll describe thoroughly what you need to do).

So, maybe my problem is that I haven't created a "Sun disk label", and I'm
not really sure how to do so. I didn't see any explicit mention of this in
the installation instructions for the sparc port of potato, but maybe I'm
missing something.

Suggestions would be most appreciated and gratefully received.

Thanks so much,

Daniel