starting (booting) Sparc 2
Debian users,
Recently I installed Debian Linux 2.2.22 on an
external disk attached to a Sparc 2, 4/75.
I should have disconnected the internal disks from
the SCSI bus before the installation but foolishly
did not. [Experience with a PC had left me overly
confident.] The installation process offered these
two boot configurations.
Make Linux Bootable Directly From Hard Disk
Make a Boot Floppy
"Make a Boot Floppy" refused to work so I
resorted to "... Directly From Hard Disk".
Seems that the partition table on sda must have
been damaged. During startup, Linux now reports
the disks thusly.
sda: sda1 sda3 sda8
sdb: sdb1 sdb2 sdb3 sdb4
sdc: sdc1 sdc2 sdc3 sdc4
[Yes, that is sda3 rather than sda2.]
If Linux is started from the rescue diskette the
partitions list shows these entries for the disk.
Device Mounted on Type
------------ --------------------- --------
/dev/sda1 -- Not available -- empty
/dev/sda2 -- Not available -- empty
/dev/sda8 -- Not available -- empty
Attempting to boot the old SunOS 4.1 on sda now
fails with this message.
error 6 in opening swap file sd1b
(Trying to swap on non-Existent device) Halted
This confirms a hypothesis that the partition
table for sda is damaged.
I put this entry in /etc/fstab.
/dev/sda1 /sunroot ufs ufstype=sun,defaults,ro,noexec 0 0
sda1 mounts and text files are legible.
Now I have two questions and a suggestion.
Q1. This is for interest. The Forth boot PROM
aliases the disks thusly.
SCSI id 0, alias disk3
SCSI id 1, alias disk1
SCSI id 2, alias disk2
SCSI id 3, alias disk0
Can anyone explain why SCSI id 0 is not disk0 and
SCSI id 3 is not disk3?
Q2. This is the serious question. Can the partition
table on sda be restored so that SunOS can start
again? If so, please mention where instructions
can be found.
S1. (suggestion) Is there any possibility of
replacing the "... Direct from Hard Disk" option
in the installation with "Boot from PROM"? My
intention is that this would be nondestructive
to existing non-Linux partitions.
Thanks in advance and best regards,
peter_easthope AT gulfnet.sd64.bc.ca
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