Subject: Interesting(?) NetBSD (HP-340) booting problem...
To: None <port-hp300@NetBSD.ORG>
From: Greg Oster <oster@cs.usask.ca>
List: port-hp300
Date: 07/12/1995 16:38:49
Hi.

After successfully installing NetBSD-1.0 on an HP-300 (it had an uptime
of 40 days at one point :-) ), I/we want to get NetBSD running on a group of
HP-340's.  (These machines are to be used as the "playground" machines
for an Operating Systems class).  

However, we've run into a small(?) snag:
After writing the root image to the (SCSI) drive, and trying to boot with it, 
we get the error message:  "Read Error :CDC 94161-9, 1400, 0".
This message is printed <after> the "BOOTING SYSTEM" message, but 
<before> the netbsd boot prompt (i.e. where you can select single/multi-user,
etc) comes up.  "CDC 94161-9" is the "name" of the drive.  It doesn't seem to
matter if the SCSI ID is 0 or something else - same problem.

We tried this on 3 different HP-340s.  All have the same SCSI card 
(On booting, it reports a "HP98265 (SCSI S 16) at 14" scsi card, although
"HP98658A at 14" is stamped on the physical card.).  
The disk boots just fine on the HP-300.  We also used the 340 to write the 
root image out to the drive (the initial disk we tried with had the root
image installed by the HP-300) -- that didn't help either (not that we expected
it to, but you never know..) 
The BOOTROM on the 340's are: Copyright 1988, Rev. C 1

I've got no idea what the problem might be.  What really gets me is that
the disk boots fine on the HP-300, but not the 340's :-( 

Do I need to find a newer/older set of bootblocks?  Can I roll them myself
from the 1.0 source, or are they already available via ftp?

Any info would be most appreciated....

Thanks.

Later...

Greg Oster

oster@cs.usask.ca
Department of Computational Science
University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, CANADA