Sparc5 woody CDR boot woes
I've been given a redundant Sparcstation 5 free of charge from an old
colleague. It's been in almost constant use for the last few years and
it booted up normally when I took posession. So, apologies if this is
long, but I figure better to provide all the info up front rather than
waste time later.
I settled on Debian as the Linux I wanted to install on it and have
since been downloading the ISOs. However, I cannot get the machine to
boot from CDROM. While I'm no schlub when it comes to PCs, I'll hold my
hand up, I'm no expert on Sun hardware...still, this perplexes me and I
hope someone out there with some expertise can help.
The machine is laid out as follows; Sparc5 with 64MB (sorry, don't know
which CPU...banner isn't telling at power-on or at OpenBoot prompt!),
two internal HDAs, first is 4.2GB, second is 2.?GB. Two external 1GB
SCSI disks are attached as devices 4 & 5 and device 6 is an external
CDROM drive. This CDROM is P/N 599-2044-02, packaged as a SUN unit,
model #611. That's all I can find off the box to indentify it.
Googling on the part number reveals a zilch. Wretch.
Anyway, I put the first CDR I burned from the downloaded ISO in and
typed "boot cdrom" at the Ok prompt. Result? "Can't read disk label.
Can't open disk label package. Can't open boot device."
I verified the disc as readable on my Linux laptop. I googled my dupa
off trying everyone & their uncle's suggestions for problems of this
ilk, all to no avail. I stuck in an official Solaris 2.7 CD and it
booted, so Stop-A'd and stuck in a CDR of Solaris 2.6 on the off chance
the CDROM drive merely couldn't read CDRs. It booted.
My only stab is that it can't read the CDR I've written 'cause it's on a
700MB CDR, but I can't find any evidence anywhere on the web that that
could be a problem. Basically, I'm stuffed if I know what's wrong.
So, if you've read this far, thanks and have you got any ideas I can try
out?
Much obliged.../Taras
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