I'm trying to install NetBSD on an external hard drive connected to by
Powerbook 3400c, but I'm not having much luck. I've read the
installation document which was really vague and checked the last
couple of months of messages here and haven't found anything which
really helped.

I've downloaded the latest installation disk from the FTP site and
since I couldn't find a utility for MacOS which would just let me write
it to a blank SCSI disk I booted into Darwin which is currently on the
drive on which I'd like to install NetBSD.  I used dd to write the file
to the blank disk (dd if=floppy.fs of=/dev/sd0a) and rebooted.
At the OF prompt I type boot scsi/@1,0:0 and after I get the normal
spinning cursor for a few seconds "unrecognized Client Program
formatstate not valid."  It does the same if I specify the kernel name.
 I'm guessing there's probably just something wrong that I'm doing when
writing the file.

Any help would be appreciated.

-Dan