mojo@uunet.uu.net (Joseph Moran) (08/22/89)
I have gotten a number of replies about the "xy: cannot exec first read" problem during boot on my Sun-3/160 with Rev 2.7 PROM's, a Xylogics 451, and 2 CDC Saber drives. It appears that many people have had this problem themselves and most had some ideas about what they could do to reduce the likelyhood of this happening (e.g., shortening or changing cables, cleaning filters, replacing the interface board on CDC). However, I also got some messages from some folks at Sun and a Sun customer that also was having this problem that had worked with someone from Sun on it. It appears that this is a PROM problem in Rev's 2.7 - 2.8.3. This seems like the most logical explanation to me since we had our CPU board upgraded to a 2.7 PROM shortly before we first started noticing the problem. Sun has now released a 2.8.4 PROM that supposedly fixes this problem. Unfortunately, it appears that you need to get an entire new CPU board to get the new PROM. We went through the hassle of doing this and now have a CPU board with a 2.8.4 PROM installed. I haven't seen the "xy: cannot exec first read" problem since we got the 2.8.4 PROM (but we haven't had much time with the new PROM yet). However, I have already found a new (more minor) problem with the 2.8.4 PROM. When we try to boot off of a 1/4" data cartridge which is connect to the system through an older SCSI-2 host adapter ("sc"), the monitor prints the following message: si: peek failed Fortunately, the tape boot still works after the (debug?) message is printed. I guess the Sun PROM saga continues... In any case, it appears that having a Rev 2.7 - 2.8.3 PROM with an "xy" SMD boot disk can result in the "xy: cannot exec first read" problem. Joseph Moran Legato Systems Inc. 260 Sheridan Avenue Palo Alto, CA 94306 (415) 329-7886 mojo@legato.com or {sun,uunet}!legato!mojo