Boot-up challenges on a 715/75

Gentlepersons:
Attempting to install Debian for HPPA on my 715/75 diskless workstation. Setup includes: 2 2gig Seagate drives, scsi, IDs set at 5 and 6 an external TEAC CD-R55S, scsi, ID set at 2

1. Interrupt boot process with SEC
2. Get a list of boot devices, as follows:

P0   scsi.6.0 seagate ST32550N
P1   scsi.5.0 seagate ST32171N
P2   scsi 0.0 TEAC cd-R55S

enter P2, where the Debian Official CD Binary-1 HPPA is located Message follows:

Failed to Initialize scsi.0.0
ENTRY_INIT status= -4
80000007 00000001 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000
00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000

00003510  000000FF  FF0003BF 84000007  800100DC  00000000  0025F000  00000400
98080000  00000000  0000D4D8  00000000  000000FF  00000002  00000004  

00000001

Occasiionally, I can get:
ENTRY_INIT status= -7

I have tried several ways to call up this CD-RW. I have specified the scsi address; I have rewritten the PATHs to direct boot up. All to no avail It is clear that the 715/75 recognizes the TEAC but does not recognize the scsi Address.

any help

Thanks in advance
jack dunn

I believe HP machines use a 512 byte sector CD drives (with the standard being 2048 byte). I'm not sure off-hand if the TEAC supports 512 byte sectors. Your best bet may be to borrow a CD off a Sun machine, if you have access to one.

Alternatively, you might have better luck doing a netboot, which I've used with success before on a 715/75.

Cheers, Steve

I'm only aware of HP using 2k sectors for CD-RO.

I've never heard of 512 byte sectors in a CD Drive. Is that a feature unique to CD-RW?

Even if that's true, the PARISC firmware expects (or will read) 2k blocks. I suggest double checking that the CD is burned properly.

that's a good idea too. "lifimage" files are also available that one can directly boot from. Follow the "Net Install ISO" link from the www.parisc-linux.org website.

hth,
grant

On Tue, 2003-11-18 22:59:36 -0700, Grant Grundler <[email protected]> wrote in message <[email protected]>:

Most machines != i386 actually want to have 512-Byte/Sector-capable CD drives. These need to be equipped with appropriate firmware. It's just because that does fit very well to 512 byte blocks from other storage devices (like HDDs:).

No, it's a (rare) feature ot CD-RO drives, mostly used by MIPS and SUN machines.

Right. To anybody who's facing non-i386 machines (or even newer i386 machines with net-bootable network cards), I can only suggest to prepare yourself with a bootserver that does everything you need for you. I've configured some old box to do that (that is, you need dhcp/bootp, rarp, tftp, rbootd, NFS and most probably some additional kernel configuration like "echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_no_pmtu_disc" and maybe a more limited ip_local_port_range due to SGI firmware bugs...).

Netbooting saves lots of time and even eases the task of backing-up your test boxes if they use nfsroot:)

MfG, JBG (->going away now to play with his vax...)

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Well, this is just from my own personal experience on a 715/75 (which has now sadly bitten the dust). A google around would tend to support this theory, for example:

http://lists.parisc-linux.org/pipermail/parisc-linux/2000-September/009345.html
"Last posting to the list was about my SCSI CD-ROM not booting the HP-UX INSTALL CD. Well, it turns out that NECs are in 2048 byte sector mode whereas HP requires 512 byte mode. SUNs and SGIs also require 512 byte sector mode. So I just borrowed a SUN external CD-ROM..."

It's the standard for Sun boxes (at least, on all my Sparcstations). This of course means I don't have any SCSI 2048 byte CD drives to verify my statement! If anyone else would like to verify it I'd be interested, and I suppose it might not be a bad idea to add it to the FAQ if true as I'm sure it'll bite someone else down the road.

It reads 2K blocks (at least, as written by my burner in 2048 byte mode) but reads 512 bytes at a time, as I understand it.

Cheers, Steve

I have several risc boxes (SGI O2, Alpha AS500, Dec 5000, Sun SS20s and HPs), all of them use 512bytes/sector. I'm actually not aware of any non-intel platform that uses 2048bytes/sector for SCSI CD-drives.

I once ran into the problem that I couldn't boot from CD using an old Sun SPARCstationLX, since the SCSI CD-drive was set to 2048bytes/sector.

Most SCSI-CD drives have a switch/jumper to select the default bytes/sector (ie. 512 or 2048). Most 'newer' drives support to be switched to either mode via software. 'Newer' meaning less than 8 years old.

However old workstations (like the old SPARCstation I presume) don't support to switch the SCSI-CD-drive to the 512 mode, so you HAVE to set the jumper on the back of the drive.

I doubt you'll find any SCSI CD-drives on the market (second hand or new) that are so old that they support only one of these modes. I bought a TEAC CD-writer and a Pioneer CD-drive in a ordinary PC shop about 6 years ago, and they support both modes (and I even couldn't find any that couldn't). They work with all SCSI machines I have.

greetings,
Max

Hello Max,

hmm excepted HP (trust me, when I build a custom cd with Ignite to upgrade our ws (about 80 of various model: 712, b132, b180 & c110) from 10.01 to 10.20, I have to take care of this detail to build the basic fs)

Thanks for those all info (well I don't have to manage a so wide range of ws supplier) but I ignored this before ;)

Joel

Hi,

have you checked whether the external scsi bus is correctly terminated? Perhaps that why your machine doesn't recognize the scsi address. FYI, i have a Plextor cd-drive connected to my 715/100 (internal), which works without any problems.

Ruediger