> Any suggestions as to what might be going on here?  

The Ultrix disklabel stuff worked last time I tried it, but that was a
long time ago.   Sigh.

You can build a filesystem from Ultrix and untar the files on it - the
only catch is that once you've booted it, you need to convert it with
(I think) fsck -C.   I don't remember whether or not this still screws
up your symlinks, but do be on the lookout for that.   It's possible
to get going that way, but it's definitely not a clean install.   :'(

BTW, base.tar.gz contains files for both root and /usr - you need to
make and mount both filesystems before untarring the file.

			       _MelloN_