problem while booting sunblade 2500

[zam...@gmail.com]

Hi,
I am totally new to solaris and recently aquired a sunblade 2500.
I know it was working ok before it got sold to me and it actually does work.
However, since I do not know the root password, I wanted to reset it. Following some tips on the internet, it was suggested to boot the machine with the installation cd.
So, after booting with an original Solaris 10 dvd, I get:

OK> boot cdrom -s
Boot device: /pci@1e/60000/ide@d/cdrom@2,0:f file and args: -s
can't read disk label
can't read disk label package
can't open boot device

OK> probe-ide
Device 0 (primary master)
not present
Device 1 (primary slave)
not present
Device 0 (secondary master)
removable ATAPI Model blabla
Device 0 (secondary slave)
not present

Could the problem be related to not having a primary master?
The only hard drive present is a SCSI drive which is correctly detected.

I also tried with another two disk drives (CDROM and DVD drive) with no luck and replaced the cable.

thanks in advance for any suggestion,

mirko

[Frank Langelage]

No, the device seems to be found.

> Boot device: /pci@1e/60000/ide@d/cdrom@2,0:f file and args: -s

...

> Device 0 (secondary master)
> removable ATAPI Model blabla

But because of

> can't read disk label
> can't read disk label package
> can't open boot device

I'd say the DVD is corrupted.

Download current ISO-image from oracle and burn it to a new DVD.

[John D Groenveld]

In article <52E0531E...@lafr.de>, Frank Langelage <fr...@lafr.de> wrote:
>Download current ISO-image from oracle and burn it to a new DVD.

Probably can mount the S10 disk from OpenSXCE and the CD image
might work should the OP's DVD media or burner be flaky with
Oracle's DVD ISOs:
<URL:http://svr4.opensxce.org/sparc/5.11/ISO/>
<URL:http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/server-storage/solaris10/downloads/>

John
groe...@acm.org

[mirko.b...@mupin.it]

> Download current ISO-image from oracle and burn it to a new DVD.

I've already tried with different media: solaris 8 installation CD, solaris 9 CD, solaris 10 freshly downloaded DVD and CD, in addition to the original DVD solaris 10 set.
The chance that all these media are corrupted is fairly slim.
What else could it be?
Someone on the net with the same problem solved it by re-asliasing devices, at least this is what I could understand. But the procedure is not very clear to me and don't want to mess up the system too much.

[YTC#1]

Bypass the DVD.

Got a laptop ? Load Virtualbox, install Solaris 10 (x86). Configure as a
JumpStart server and do a net boot (boot net -s)

Setting up a JumpStart server is pretty straight forward (especially if
you download JET from Oracle and use that).

[Sam]

On 22/01/2014 22:01, zam...@gmail.com wrote:
> Hi,
> I am totally new to solaris and recently aquired a sunblade 2500.
> I know it was working ok before it got sold to me and it actually does work.

Did you see this workstation successfully booted from a Solaris DVD
before you bought it?

> OK> probe-ide
> Device 0 (primary master)
> not present
> Device 1 (primary slave)
> not present
> Device 0 (secondary master)
> removable ATAPI Model blabla
> Device 0 (secondary slave)
> not present

Why change the DVD drive model to "blabla" above? What does it actually
show for the original drive? This could be relevant (see below).

Are you sure that the DVD drive installed when you bought the Sunblade
2500 is a valid & compatible drive? If so, how?

Have you tried that original DVD drive in a PC? I expect it to work,
although I haven't ever tried. If it doesn't work in a PC, that tells
us nothing (as I can't guarantee that it should do so), but if it _does_
work (and, for example, successfully allows a full ISO to be read using
something like "cdcheck") then we can have some confidence in that being
a working drive.

> I also tried with another two disk drives (CDROM and DVD drive) with no luck

Not all DVD drives are compatible, so you could have a faulty (or
incompatible) original DVD drive, and then tried a working but
*incompatible* DVD drive.

During boot, do you see any text like these line below?

Following devices are disabled :
ide

Have you any experience using obdiag?

[zam...@gmail.com]

> Bypass the DVD.
>
>
>
> Got a laptop ? Load Virtualbox, install Solaris 10 (x86). Configure as a
>
> JumpStart server and do a net boot (boot net -s)
>
>
>
> Setting up a JumpStart server is pretty straight forward (especially if
>
> you download JET from Oracle and use that).

I have no experience with this, but I will give it a try.
Hope to find a clear howto

[zam...@gmail.com]

> Did you see this workstation successfully booted from a Solaris DVD
>
> before you bought it?

I got this workstation from the company I work for. Surely it was working as I saw it up and running, but I've never seen it booting from a Solaris DVD.

> > removable ATAPI Model blabla
>
> > Device 0 (secondary slave)
>
> > not present
>
>
>
> Why change the DVD drive model to "blabla" above? What does it actually
>
> show for the original drive? This could be relevant (see below).

Sorry

ATAPI Model: JLMSXJ-HD166S

>
>
> Are you sure that the DVD drive installed when you bought the Sunblade
>
> 2500 is a valid & compatible drive? If so, how?
>

Well, I presume it is a compatible drive. I guess it would make little
sense to have a compatible drive and than replace it
after installation before handing the machine to the CAD designer.
But this is my guess.

> Have you tried that original DVD drive in a PC? I expect it to work,
>
> although I haven't ever tried. If it doesn't work in a PC, that tells
>
> us nothing (as I can't guarantee that it should do so), but if it _does_
>
> work (and, for example, successfully allows a full ISO to be read using
>
> something like "cdcheck") then we can have some confidence in that being
>
> a working drive.

I am not sure about this one.
The DVD I am using is for SPARC architectures and in the original box
there's another DVD saying "x86 platforms". So, I guess I cannot use the Sparc DVD on a PC, and indeed it doesn't seem to work.

>
> > I also tried with another two disk drives (CDROM and DVD drive) with no luck
>
>
>
> Not all DVD drives are compatible, so you could have a faulty (or
>
> incompatible) original DVD drive, and then tried a working but
>
> *incompatible* DVD drive.

This could be a chance. But I bought from my company three of these
workstations and all of them show the same output. Still possible,
but unlikely that all three have a faulty original DVD drive.

>
> During boot, do you see any text like these line below?
>
>
>
> Following devices are disabled :
>
> ide

Never seen this one.

>
> Have you any experience using obdiag?

Got to look it up on the internet...


Thank you very much for the patience!

[zam...@gmail.com]

On Friday, January 24, 2014 6:18:06 PM UTC+1, YTC#1 wrote:
> On 23/01/14 04:45, mirko.b...@mupin.it wrote:
>
> >
>
> >> Download current ISO-image from oracle and burn it to a new DVD.
>
> >
>
> >
>
> > I've already tried with different media: solaris 8 installation CD, solaris 9 CD, solaris 10 freshly downloaded DVD and CD, in addition to the original DVD solaris 10 set.
>
> > The chance that all these media are corrupted is fairly slim.
>
> > What else could it be?
>
> > Someone on the net with the same problem solved it by re-asliasing devices, at least this is what I could understand. But the procedure is not very clear to me and don't want to mess up the system too much.
>
> >
>
>
>
> Bypass the DVD.

anyway, this is the workaround I found on the internet for
solving a similar problem which is using aliases:

https://community.oracle.com/thread/1932855?tstart=-11

what do you think about it?
After all I just want to reset the old root password and boot the old system.

[Sam]

On 24/01/2014 21:56, zam...@gmail.com wrote:
>
>> Did you see this workstation successfully booted from a Solaris DVD
>> before you bought it?
>
> I got this workstation from the company I work for. Surely it was working as I saw it up and running

I never doubted that. :-)

> but I've never seen it booting from a Solaris DVD.

OK, so we can't say that this unable-to-boot-from-a-DVD problem is a new
situation - it could have existed for some time.

>> Why change the DVD drive model to "blabla" above? What does it actually
>> show for the original drive? This could be relevant (see below).
>
> Sorry
>
> ATAPI Model: JLMSXJ-HD166S

Thanks - that looks like a valid drive for the SB2500. Another way to
check (which I should have mentioned earlier but I was rushing even more
than now) would be find the Sun p/n label on the top of the drive, and
give that p/n for checking. However now I'm more confident that at
least _this_ drive should be compatible (no comment about any other DVD
or CD drives which you have tried).

>> Have you tried that original DVD drive in a PC? I expect it to work,
>> although I haven't ever tried. If it doesn't work in a PC, that tells
>> us nothing (as I can't guarantee that it should do so), but if it _does_
>> work (and, for example, successfully allows a full ISO to be read using
>> something like "cdcheck") then we can have some confidence in that being
>> a working drive.
>
> I am not sure about this one.
> The DVD I am using is for SPARC architectures and in the original box
> there's another DVD saying "x86 platforms". So, I guess I cannot use the Sparc DVD on a PC, and indeed it doesn't seem to work.

You have misunderstood. I was discussing temporarily moving that DVD
_drive_ into a PC to check that it works there. You are replying about
the _DVD_.

(Also I should clarify: Instead of saying "full ISO" above, I should
have said "full DVD". Basically, to get some confidence that the whole
of a known-good DVD is readable.)

>>> I also tried with another two disk drives (CDROM and DVD drive) with no luck
>>
>> Not all DVD drives are compatible, so you could have a faulty (or
>> incompatible) original DVD drive, and then tried a working but
>> *incompatible* DVD drive.
>
> This could be a chance. But I bought from my company three of these
> workstations and all of them show the same output. Still possible,
> but unlikely that all three have a faulty original DVD drive.

That is new information! If you had said earlier that there were 3
machines with the same symptoms, I would not have asked the same questions.

I will think if there are any other suggestions I can give, with this
new information.

>> During boot, do you see any text like these line below?
>>
>> Following devices are disabled :
>> ide
>
> Never seen this one.

Good.

>> Have you any experience using obdiag?
>
> Got to look it up on the internet...

OK, I don't have time to explain more now. In short, it's OBP
Diagnostics - some limited self-tests for parts of the system. However,
now you have said that you have 3 affected systems, I do not suggest
this is a priority.

> Thank you very much for the patience!

OK :-)

[Sam]

On 24/01/2014 22:05, zam...@gmail.com wrote:
> anyway, this is the workaround I found on the internet for
> solving a similar problem which is using aliases:
>
> https://community.oracle.com/thread/1932855?tstart=-11
>
> what do you think about it?

In that thread, the person is just adding a (partially?) working CD/DVD
into another IDE connector, aliasing that IDE port to the name "cdrom2"
and booting from that.

This brings us back to the question whether your DVD drives (in all 3
affected systems) are working or not, and whether you have got other
definitely working (and compatible) DVD drives to try.

That thread did not give enough detail about the original problem, to
understand whether it was actually a similar problem to yours. If you
are skilled with hardware and therefore unlikely to cause bent pins
etc., and take sensible ESD precautions, then I guess all you waste is
time if it doesn't work. However that thread only describes using a
different DVD drive and cable, and you say that you have tried replacing
them anyway, so I see no reason why that process should work, if your
replacements so far have also not worked, unless you have a faulty IDE
port for the DVD drive (in all 3 systems?!).

As with all attempts at remote support, readers can't see / hear / feel
things which might be obvious if the hardware was in front of us. :-(
For example, I can't hear what sound the DVD drive makes when you put a
DVD in it with the power on - that can be a useful indication of
problems. Try comparing the behaviour of the SB2500 DVD drive, when you
insert the S10 SPARC DVD (with the SB2500 sitting at the {ok} prompt),
and then when you put the same DVD into your PC's DVD drive (with it
sitting in BIOS setup or another non-OS screen or DOS) e.g. number of
drive spin-up/down cycles and the length of time the DVD light is on,
before it goes off. Even allowing for them being different drives, any
_large_ differences (especially if either drive has several spin-up/down
cycles, or lots of extended drive flashing) may be relevant.

No more suggestions at the moment.

[YTC#1]

There is full documentation in the download from Oracle. Also further
help/FAQs at http://jet.maui.co.uk

I think booting from a JumpStart would be the quickest option for you
currently