Subject: Re: replace boot blocks on Soekris 4801
To: None <netbsd-help@NetBSD.org>
From: James K. Lowden <jklowden@schemamania.org>
List: netbsd-help
Date: 11/01/2006 23:05:35
David Laight wrote:
> On Tue, Oct 31, 2006 at 01:13:56AM -0500, James K. Lowden wrote:
> > 
> > 	The new bootblocks don't work.  They don't boot any kernels --
> > 	generic,
> > install, 2.0 -- on my box.  
> 
> At what point, and with what error message (if any) do they fail ?

Hi David, 

Sorry, that could have been clearer.  I get the 5-second countdown.  I get
the banner from boot(8) -- b3@something dated 2006 -- then the "little
spinning thing", a row of numbers ending in 0x ... something.  The next
thing I'd expect would be the kernel banner, but instead I get nothing. 
No error message, just dead air.  

If you need more precision, I'll reboot it.  It happens to be running now,
so I'm reluctant to reboot it just to get the exact messages.  

As I'm able to boot the 3.0 kernel using the 2.0 blocks on the second
drive, I'm hoping I can get away with installing them on the main
(nonbooting, 3.0) drive.  

Can I use the 3.0 installboot(8) to do the job?  The man page says "It is
not necessary for filesystem to be a currently mounted file system."  I
take it that means I can do this on a running system with /dev/wd0a
mounted on / ?  

Many thanks for your help.  

--jkl