Subject: Sun4m - How do I remove the *BSD boot block?
To: None <port-sparc@netbsd.org>
From: =?iso-8859-1?q?Derek=20McCallum?= <derek_mccallum@yahoo.com>
List: port-sparc
Date: 03/28/2003 16:54:35
Hello
I have two sparcstation 20s and recently I installed
OpenBSD on one and NetBSD on the other as part of an
experiment/exercise. 
That experience done with for the time being I have
tried to reinstall Solaris8-9 only to find that the
boot sectors of both disks have been redered unusable
as a boot device for Solaris. 

I can format the disks and mount them as a file system
under another solaris system, and can reinstall
Solaris on them as the root device. But they fail to
boot with the following message:

Rebooting with command:
Boot device:
/iommu/sbus/espdma@f,400000/esp@f,800000/sd@3,0:a 
File and args:
boot: cannot find misc/krtld
boot: error loading interpreter (misc/krtld)
Elf32 read error.
boot failed
Enter filename
[/platform/SUNW,SPARCstation-20/kernel/unix]:

I have tried ataching the disks to an Apaptec 2940 and
doing a low-level format but still this does not
correct it. I have also tired Sun installboot and
fdisk commands, dd'ing dev/zero to the raw device
etc.., all to no avail.

I appreciate I am asking how do I turn away from
NetBSD and back to Solaris. It's not entirely the
case, one of the boxes will remain on as BSD. I really
do need to recover one the disks though! They are both
Sun (Fujitsu) 9.1GB disks.

Has anybody struck this before?

Any help greatly appreciated.

Derek McCallum
London, UK

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