[parisc-linux] How to Boot CD on C110

[parisc-linux] How to Boot CD on C110

[Daniel Williams]

I've got a C110...  I picked up the .9 ISO and burned it with EasyCD 
Creator on a Win2k box (I know, I know, but no access to a linux box 
right now, I'm running FreeBSD and it doesn't have a burner).  Popped it 
in and it won't boot.  Too bad the firmware doesn't see the SCSI CD 
either, when SEArching on bootup.  Both the fixed disks in the unit have 
been wiped, so I have no OS to start from.

SCSI CD is ID 2, but what bus is it on?  The only one I can find 
mentioned is 'core.FWSCSI'.  Trying to 'boot SESCSI.2' doesn't work.  
When I try to boot 'boot core.FWSCSI.2.0'  (the CD as far as I can 
guess) it asks about the interactive thing, I type 'y', then it says 
that it failed to boot and spits out a bunch of numbers onscreen.  Oh, 
when the CD is in the CD drive, the access light on the CD flashes on 
and off steadily, like its being read every second or so, even when the 
machine is doing nothing with it.  Happens when the CD drive is in an 
external box connected to the SE SCSI port on the back too.  Happens on 
the internal 50 pin SE bus as well.

The README-ISO for the boot CD mentions:
 >    After the ISO image is mastered, but before you burn any CDs,
 >    change to this directory and run 'palo -f iso.conf'.  The name
 >    of the ISO image is inside the .conf file and you'll probably
 >    have to change that.
 >    The ISO image is now bootable.  Burn and boot it.

However, I don't have linux anywhere and can't run palo -f iso.conf from 
anything, much less anything with a CD burner.  Is there any way that I 
can make this CD bootable or coax the  machine into booting the raw ISO 
I burned?  Preferably using a Win2k box.  I did a direct burn from ISO 
in EasyCD Creator and it reads fine from any computer I throw it in, 
just doesn't boot on my C110...  Any help greatly appreciated, thanks,

Dan

[parisc-linux] How to Boot CD on C110

[Christian Suder]

Dan,

I assume the CD drive is a 'normal' drive (50 pin SE), not something
exotic like a wide SCSI.

The correct device would be core.SCSI.2.0, however it's strange that
SEArch doesn't even see it. The ID needs to be unique across both the SE
and the FW SCSI. Did you double-check the termination ? The C110 I have
here does have term's on the internal cable, which is different from the
usual PC.

What brand is the CD drive, and does it work on a different machine ?

Anyhow, the fun begins *after* the installation, there seems to be some
issues with the FW SCSI that haven't been sorted out yet. I have severely
corrupted fs within less than an hour.... files with 0x0s amidst the text
e.g.

	Christian

Re: [parisc-linux] How to Boot CD on C110

[Grant Grundler]

Christian Suder wrote:
> I assume the CD drive is a 'normal' drive (50 pin SE), not something
> exotic like a wide SCSI.

It is.
HP didn't ship IDE optical drives on parisc until C3000 workstations.
All internal CD-ROMs before were SE SCSI.

> The correct device would be core.SCSI.2.0, however it's strange that
> SEArch doesn't even see it. The ID needs to be unique across both the SE
> and the FW SCSI.

That's wrong. The ID is local to each SCSI bus.
Ie ID on SE SCSI are in a seperate address space from FWD SCSI.

grant

Re: [parisc-linux] How to Boot CD on C110

[Grant Grundler]

Daniel Williams wrote:
> I've got a C110...  I picked up the .9 ISO and burned it with EasyCD 
> Creator on a Win2k box (I know, I know, but no access to a linux box 
> right now, I'm running FreeBSD and it doesn't have a burner).  Popped it 
> in and it won't boot.

Uhm...I tried the same trick for IA64 Debian ISO and it didn't work either.
I should have looked in the parisc-linux mail archives before
since folks have described how to do it right. Anyway, I found a CD-writer
on a linux box and ended up using cdrecord.

> Too bad the firmware doesn't see the SCSI CD 
> either, when SEArching on bootup.

"Sea" should see the CD-ROM. Very likely it's not properly
connected or has the option jumpers set wrong for PDC.

> SCSI CD is ID 2, but what bus is it on?

When it's working right, "sea" should tell you regardless of
whether it has a CD installed or not (I think).

grant

Re: [parisc-linux] How to Boot CD on C110

[Christian Suder]

Grant Grundler wrote:

> 
> > The correct device would be core.SCSI.2.0, however it's strange that
> > SEArch doesn't even see it. The ID needs to be unique across both the SE
> > and the FW SCSI.
> 
> That's wrong. The ID is local to each SCSI bus.
> Ie ID on SE SCSI are in a seperate address space from FWD SCSI.
> 

Maybe my memory fades but I believe I tried this once and it didn't work
to my surprise.... that's why I pointed it out. 


> grant

Re: [parisc-linux] How to Boot CD on C110

[Daniel Williams]

OK, so SEArch should see the CD drive regardless.  Should it also see 
the FWSCSI internal HDs?  They don't have anything on them...  But the 
Firmware doesn't show anything after its done searching, not the 2 HDs, 
the CD, or the DDS tape drive.  Whats that about CD option jumpers set 
wrong?  What should the correct configuration be?  The pins that it has 
on the back (its a HP branded toshiba XM-5401B 50pin narrow) are ID1, 
ID2, ID4, PRTY, PRV/ALW, TEST, and TERM.  ID2 and PRTY have jumpers 
connected, the rest are not shorted.  The CD drive case is an HP 
external drive with 2 HD50 pin connectors on the back.  Comes in 
matching case color and design to the C110.  I've got the cable from the 
external drive connected to the SESCSI port on the back of the C110, but 
the external bus is NOT terminated.  However, when connected to the 
internal 50pin narrow bus, it IS terminated, and bootup does not occur 
nor does SEA see it.  Perhaps the CD drive is whacked, I'll have to do 
network boot then :)  Anyone done that with MacOS X?  j/k.

For making a boot CD, what exactly has to be done to make it boot?  How 
does the firmware recognize that a particular media is bootable and what 
steps does it then take to load the bootstrap code into memory and from 
where on the media does that bootstrap code come?  Can the kernel be 
loaded from a plain ISO or does there need to be special 'first block 
magic code' that will do the rest?

If I try to boot of 'core.SCSI.2.0' it comes back and says ENTRY_INIT, 
nextline STATUS=-7, and then a couple of rows of 8 digit numbers, the 
first being 00000080.  What's it trying to do here?

Thanks again,
Dan

On Thursday, October 25, 2001, at 11:53 PM, Grant Grundler wrote:

> Daniel Williams wrote:
>> I've got a C110...  I picked up the .9 ISO and burned it with EasyCD
>> Creator on a Win2k box (I know, I know, but no access to a linux box
>> right now, I'm running FreeBSD and it doesn't have a burner).  Popped 
>> it
>> in and it won't boot.
>
> Uhm...I tried the same trick for IA64 Debian ISO and it didn't work 
> either.
> I should have looked in the parisc-linux mail archives before
> since folks have described how to do it right. Anyway, I found a 
> CD-writer
> on a linux box and ended up using cdrecord.
>
>> Too bad the firmware doesn't see the SCSI CD
>> either, when SEArching on bootup.
>
> "Sea" should see the CD-ROM. Very likely it's not properly
> connected or has the option jumpers set wrong for PDC.
>
>> SCSI CD is ID 2, but what bus is it on?
>
> When it's working right, "sea" should tell you regardless of
> whether it has a CD installed or not (I think).
>
> grant

Re: [parisc-linux] How to Boot CD on C110

[Paul Bame]

> 
> For making a boot CD, what exactly has to be done to make it boot?  How 
> does the firmware recognize that a particular media is bootable and what 
> steps does it then take to load the bootstrap code into memory and from 
> where on the media does that bootstrap code come?  Can the kernel be 
> loaded from a plain ISO or does there need to be special 'first block 
> magic code' that will do the rest?

Yes there's a special first block, and our ISO images always have it.
The details of the block are well described.  Check the palo README.html,
or the palo data structure 'struct firstblock', or the PDC (firmware)
documents accessable from parisc-linux.org.

But I bet you didn't really want to know how to calculate checksums
and poke magic values into the first block :-)

> If I try to boot of 'core.SCSI.2.0' it comes back and says ENTRY_INIT, 
> nextline STATUS=-7, and then a couple of rows of 8 digit numbers, the 
> first being 00000080.  What's it trying to do here?

Another part of the firmware is called IODC, and I think there's
an iodc.pdf on line.  In there you can search for ENTRY_INIT, which is
a firmware procedure call, and look for the return status of -7 (If you
can't search PDF, look for something like ENTRY_IO and BOOTDEV_READ.
Sorry I don't recall what -7 is, but I'm guessing with your other symptoms
it's saying it can't even initialize the device, because it can't see it.

Until your 'search' command sees something I don't think booting
is going to work.  'Search' cycles through SCSI addresses
and while it's running you should see flashing access lights on
SCSI devices which have them like the CD.  'search' will display
the bootable devices despite what's on the media, though may not
show removable-media devices which are unloaded.  I'm betting on a
cable, connector, or termination problem -- hopefully not a fried
SCSI controller.

Good luck!

	-Paul Bame

RE: [parisc-linux] How to Boot CD on C110

[Witvliet, Hans]

Hi,

	Hi Daniel,

	I had twice the same problem:
	First time I had two devices with the same scsi-id (mea culpa)

	Second time, the (internal) scsi flatcable was half detached
(probably during transport, or fiddling of my fellow workers)...

	Result was identical; after powerup, the SEA command did not show
anything, neither the internal disk, nor the cdrom-drive.


	Hope it helps, Hans.


	Too bad the firmware doesn't see the SCSI CD either, when SEArching
on bootup. 
	

Re: [parisc-linux] How to Boot CD on C110

[Grant Grundler]

Daniel Williams wrote:
> OK, so SEArch should see the CD drive regardless.  Should it also see 
> the FWSCSI internal HDs?

Yes.

>  They don't have anything on them...  But the 
> Firmware doesn't show anything after its done searching, not the 2 HDs, 
> the CD, or the DDS tape drive.

hmm...PDC is pretty brain dead. Were those SCSI devices shipped with the
C110 or installed later?

> Whats that about CD option jumpers set wrong?
> What should the correct configuration be?  The pins that it has 
> on the back (its a HP branded toshiba XM-5401B 50pin narrow) are ID1, 
> ID2, ID4, PRTY, PRV/ALW, TEST, and TERM.  ID2 and PRTY have jumpers 
> connected, the rest are not shorted.

I don't know what they should be - I don't have the product manual.
ID2/PRTY sound like they are correct. I don't konw what PRV/ALW means.
(Prevent/Allow what?). TERM should probably be left disconnected.

BTW, just because the drive is from HP doesn't mean it's setup
to work w/ an HP workstation. Firmware on the drive could do things
that confuse PDC/IODC.

> nor does SEA see it.

You need to figure this output first...try a different drive perhaps.
The FWD drives not being seen concerns me just as much.

grant