Re: Data Access Exception when trying to Boot installed NetBSD of hard drive

[Adrian Christiansen <adrian.christiansen%gmail.com@localhost>]

Hi guys!

After reading your comments I made the assumption that I messed
something up, after all I did alter the size of the :a partition. So I
installed NetBSD again onto another hard drive, using the suggested :a
partition. Sadly I can only report that I got the same error as before
when trying to boot NetBSD.

Output from OpenBoot:

Can't open input device.
SPARCstation IPX, No Keyboard
ROM Rev. 2.3, 64 MB memory installed, Serial #12648430.
Ethernet address 8:0:20:c0:ff:ee, Host ID: 57c0ffee.


Rebooting with command:
Boot device: diskhelp   File and args:
Can't open boot device
Type  help  for more information
ok probe-scsi
Target 0
  Unit 0   Disk     COMPAQ  ST12550N        322300425332Copyright (c)
1994 Seagate All rights reserved 0000
Target 1
  Unit 0   Disk     SEAGATE ST32550N SUN2.1G041200464792Copyright (c)
1995 Seagate All rights reserved ASA2
ok boot disk1:a netbsd
Boot device: /sbus/esp@0,800000/sd@1,0:a   File and args: netbsd
>> NetBSD/sparc Secondary Boot, Revision 1.15
Booting netbsd
Data Access Exception
ok


I tried to find some backtrace debugging tools in the OpenBoot 2.x
manual and saw there was ftrace. I don't know if ftrace is of any
help, but just in case here's the output of ftrace after the Data
Access Exception.

ok ftrace
@                 Called from (ffea5d84)                at  ffea5dae
my-voc            Called from $call-self                at  ffea714a
$call-self        Called from $call-method              at  ffea71e0
 ffefb8a0
$call-method      Called from seek                      at  ffebc7fa
execute           Called from $vexecute?                at  ffea62a4
$vexecute?        Called from $call-self                at  ffea714e
$call-self        Called from $call-method              at  ffea71e0
        0
execute           Called from catch                     at  ffe9c3f2
 ffefefd4
        0
 ffefebbc
catch             Called from op-seek                   at  ffea78f6
op-seek           Called from op-seek                   at  ffea7958
        0
(fload)           Called from interact                  at  ffe9eaac
execute           Called from catch                     at  ffe9c3f2
 ffefefec
        0
 ffefebd4
catch             Called from (quit                     at  ffe9ead0


I had a look at the ram inside the machine.

The banks are organized as follows:
Bank 3: 16384K - CPSM33A S16 80
Bank 2: 16384K - CPSM33A S16 80
Bank 1: 16384K - CPSM33A S16 80
Bank 0: 16MB Mitsubishi memory, 80 ns. MH4M09AJ-8 chips, 33 of them.

Tried placing the odd Mitsubishi memory at Bank 3. This didn't help either.

So I'm still stuck :(

2014-10-13 16:53 GMT+02:00 Mouse <mouse%rodents-montreal.org@localhost>:
>>> Some machines insist on boot partitions beginning at/near the
>>> beginning of the disk; others don't; I forget which are which....
>> Even my Ultra 2, which is much newer then the original poster's
>> system requires the kernel to be within the first 4GB.
>
> "Newer" is not quite as relevant as you seem to think.  Even among
> sparc32 machines, I've never found anything else (like "designed before
> $DATE") that reliably indicates whether "has the 1G boot partition
> limit" applies.
>
> And it is 1G; the issue is the use of 6-byte SCSI CDBs, which have only
> 21 bits of sector address and thus can address only the first gig.  If
> you have a machine with a 4G boot partition limit, the issue behind it
> is something else - most likely, I'd guess, the use of 32-bit byte
> offsets somewhere in the relevant code paths.  (There is a similar
> issue with 10-byte CDBs, but that limit is much higher.  If I'm reading
> an include file correctly, they have 32 bits of address, for a 2T
> limit.  There's a similar limit for IDE at 128G, IIRC, but I don't
> recall details; if it's a similar addressing limit, it would be 28 bits
> of address, which seems possible but unlikely.)
>
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