Readying a disk for booting NetBSD-5

[Chris Ross <cross+netbsd%distal.com@localhost>]

  I have a sparc64, and for a long time I have been netbooting it  
using various NetBSD versions, all NFS mounted from an i386 box on  
which I compile things.  Now, I have a stable netbsd-5 image, and I  
want to install that onto the internal disk of my sparc64.

  I was looking through the Sparc-64 FAQ, and the 5.0 INSTALL guide,  
and I see in there instructions for getting an installation media  
setup on the netboot, and running sysinst.  And while I could back  
back to that if needed, I've already done most of that work, I think.   
I formatted the local filesystem, extracted all of the packages,  
brought over and updated (with postinstall) the /etc from the netboot  
which was already configured, and did what I thought was needed to  
make it bootable.

  I ran installboot (installboot /dev/rsd0c /local/usr/mdec/bootblk),  
then copied ofwboot into the new root (cp -p /local/usr/mdec/ofwboot / 
local/).  But, clearly I'm missing some step.  When I try to boot from  
OFW with "boot disk" I get:

Rebooting with command: boot disk
Boot device: /sbus/SUNW,fas@e,8800000/sd@0,0  File and args:
Evaluating: boot disk0

Can't open boot device

Boot device: net  File and args:
Timeout waiting for ARP/RARP packet
>> NetBSD/sparc64 OpenFirmware Boot, Revision 1.13


  .. at which point it loads successfully from the netboot.  What did  
I miss jiggling on the SCSI disk to make the bootrom able to boot off  
of it? Both disklabel and sunlabel see a partition table in which  
partition a (as well as c) fills the whole disk.  So, I didn't *think*  
it was a label problem.

  Anyway, if I've missed something simple, let me know what it is.   
Otherwise, if I'm best off dropping back to installing from a  
netbooted miniroot with sysinst, let me know that too.

  Thanks all.

                           - Chris