After lots of experimenting I found that the problem wasn't my hardware
at all. The problem lies with the default 1.6.1 NetBSD MacPPC kernel.

I replaced the kernel in my ATA Hard Drive with the Install Kernel used
in the boot floppy and then booted in OF using:

boot ata/ata-disk@0:0

Luckily the Install kernel booted successfully and natively from the
hard drive, but this poses yet another problem.

I assume that there is some type of bug in the default 1.6.1 MacPPC
kernel that wasn't caught and wasn't tested on the PowerMac 6500/250.
I'm going to see if i can build a smaller custom kernel and see if that
boots.

Anyone with similar trouble?
-rian

On Sat, 2004-01-17 at 02:02, rian wrote:
> After much initial confusion i was able to get Open Firmware running and
> set the input and output devices using BootVars (I didn't set the
> nvramrc as the model's page suggests, but i didn't have the problem of
> low screen contrast). Open Firmware is very unstable and will freeze
> after enough successful commands.
> 
> Open Firmware refuses to boot my NetBSD/macppc iso cd after this
> command:
> boot scsi-int/sd@3:0 NETBSD.MACPPC
> 
> So i gave up on the cd, and used the floppy and that seemed to work very
> well. After the complete and total installation of NetBSD up until the
> first restart (when it says "NetBSD Installation is complete, please
> restart from your hard drive, edit rc.conf blah") from the actual hard
> drive i get this message "/: Error partition full", something like that.
> so i just exited single user mode, went back to the Install menu and
> rebooted the system.
> 
> When i reboot and go back into Open Firmware i enter this command:
> boot ata/ata-disk@0:0
> 
> it completely loads "stage2" but it freezes when the activity bar is
> spinning at stops at a certain number, like this:
> 
>  >> NetBSD/macppc OpenFirmware Boot, Revision 1.3
>  >> (tsubai@mint.iri.co.jp, Sun Nov 26 01:41:27 JST 2000)
> 309495 \
> 
> and it just says there. I retried the whole process, and same deal. So
> I wondered if maybe my hard drive's MBR (err, zero partition space) is
> corrupted (it's not the orginal). I doubt that though.
> 
> Any help would be largely appreciated. Just to remind all, i have read through
> the docs thoroughly. If anyone has had the PowerMac 6500 (performa-type)
> i would appreciate it if you shared your experiences. Thanks a lot!
> -rian