jto@ousrvr.oulu.fi (Jarkko Oikarinen) (07/20/90)
I recently tried to install a MiniScribe 9380S disk to a standalone Sun-3/50. I didn't have a portable tape drive so I borrowed a working disk and connected both disks to Sun via SCSI. Formatting and partitioning the (new) disk succeeded after some minor problems with /etc/format.dat. But making the disk bootable using installboot seemed to be impossible; it always flamed back with a message 'not a superblock'. Why is this ? The command I used was something like: 'installboot /mnt/boot bootsd /dev/sd4a' (the root partition of the new disk was mounted to /mnt). I finally got around the problem by simply dd:ing the root partition from another disk, but would like to know the reason for installboot's behaviour. Thanx in advance. --Jarkko
richard@cs.ua.oz.au (07/23/90)
In article <10110@brazos.Rice.edu>, jto@ousrvr.oulu.fi (Jarkko Oikarinen) writes: |> |>But making the new disk bootable using |>installboot seemed to be impossible; it always flamed back with a message |>'not a superblock'. Why is this ? |> |>The command I used was something like: |>'installboot /mnt/boot bootsd /dev/sd4a' |>(the root partition of the new disk was mounted to /mnt). I've had similar of the same problem, I found 2 things that I was doing wrong.. a) Like you, I used; '/dev/sd?a', where it should be the RAW device, ie: /dev/rsd?a b) Use ALL the options to 'installboot' to see just how far it gets (ie: installboot -vlt ..). Sometimes that helps get to the problem... Hope that is of some help... Richard Siggs ACSnet: richard@cs.ua.oz.au
moran@warbucks.ai.sri.com (Doug Moran) (07/27/90)
jto@ousrvr.oulu.fi writes > Formatting and partitioning the (new) disk succeeded after some minor > problems with /etc/format.dat. But making the disk bootable using > installboot seemed to be impossible; it always flamed back with a message > 'not a superblock'. Why is this ? The problem is that installboot fails in certain circumstances when the label was not visible when the workstation was last booted (either because the disk was off-line or because it was not yet labeled). -- Doug Moran
poffen@sj.ate.slb.com (Russ Poffenberger) (10/08/90)
In article <10169@brazos.Rice.edu> richard@cs.ua.oz.au writes: > >In article <10110@brazos.Rice.edu>, jto@ousrvr.oulu.fi (Jarkko >Oikarinen) writes: >|> >|>But making the new disk bootable using >|>installboot seemed to be impossible; it always flamed back with a message >|>'not a superblock'. Why is this ? >|> >|>The command I used was something like: >|>'installboot /mnt/boot bootsd /dev/sd4a' >|>(the root partition of the new disk was mounted to /mnt). I have had this occur sometimes when the root partition is not mounted as root. (eg /mnt). I don't really know why, but one way around it is to boot off another device initially (tape or NFS) using the -a option (b -sa), then when it asks the question for root and swap, give the local disk (sd0a/sd0b). Once booted, then installboot works fine (installboot -lv /boot bootsd /dev/rsd0a). Russ Poffenberger DOMAIN: poffen@sj.ate.slb.com Schlumberger Technologies UUCP: {uunet,decwrl,amdahl}!sjsca4!poffen 1601 Technology Drive CIS: 72401,276 San Jose, Ca. 95110 (408)437-5254