Subject: Re: Performa 550 problem
To: person1994 <person1994@earthlink.net>
From: Jeffrey Ohlmann <jaohlma@bgnet.bgsu.edu>
List: port-mac68k
Date: 11/05/1997 19:08:54
On Wed, 5 Nov 1997, person1994 wrote:

> a dialog box comes up telling me that NetBSD has not been 
> tested on my hardware yet. I have the chose of continuing or to cancel. 
> If I continue the computer just froze.
> Now, does anybody have any idea what is going on?

You can ignore the bit about NetBSD not having been tested (there's an
option in the booter to disable this), so that's not the problem.  Is it
freezing while still on the MacOS side, or has the boot process actually
begun and then failed? 

If on the MacOS side, the standard thing to check first is the monitor
depth.  You want Black and White.  Other depths (may) work except for
"thousands", which is pretty much guaranteed to freeze the Mac.  You might
also look in to a newer version of the Booter -- 1.11.x, I think -- which
very kindly adjusts the monitor depth for you automatically.

If BSD has actually begun to boot, it might be the scsi driver causing the
hangup. What is the kernel that you are using?  I have had all sorts of
misadventures with scsi drivers on this machine.  Whichever you are using
-- the ncr, which is the standard, or the sbc, which comes only on kernels
appending with "SBC" (e.g., GENERICSBC-45) -- download the other and try
booting with that.  I've heard reports that the original drive in this
machine wants the sbc driver, but I have an aftermarket disk that demands
the ncr.

Good luck,

Jeffrey Ohlmann