SunBlade 100 - cannot mount/boot from CD-Rom
Dear Forum,
Please excuse what are very basic questions - I'm very new to Sun and Unix and still feeling my way around :o) I would be very grateful if someone has the time to help me with this.
I installed Solaris 10 on my inherited Blade 100 and all works fine except for I cannot mount the cdrom (I get the message Mount point cannot be determined) Under advisement from a distant friend of a friend, I tried stopping vold and then mounting the drive but it still doesn't work. Another friend suggested I replace Solaris 10 with Debian Linux... but the poor ole blade couldn't find the CDROOM from the OK prompt either.
At a guess - I'm thinking that the drive has actually just died. The machine was sat around for 3 years doing nothing. But its equally likely that I screwed up the OS from being a complete airhead, so any tips on how to trouble shoot this would be most welcome.
If I need to replace the drive, I have a couple of old Ultras that I can cannibalize for a replacement drive - plus a few pcs. I would be grateful for any tips on doing this too.
many thanks in advance,
Kate
[1139 byte] By [
illiterate] at [2007-11-26 10:13:31]
# 1
Hello.If you have a working IDE CD Rom drive I would just replace the drive to check if it was really a problem with the drive.Replace the IDE cable too. I know a case where a hard disk did not work due to a bad IDE cable.Martin
# 2
Check to see if the system even see's the CDROM
iostat -En
If it doesn't, at the OK prompt run:
probe-ide-all
If the probe does not see the drive you have a bad drive or no power to the drive.
...If any of steps above identify the drive, you may still have bad optics or mechanics on the CDROM drive.
easy check would be to boot the system from CDROM. At the OK prompt
boot cdrom
..If it fails, you have bad drive or bad media.
Sun4u at 2007-7-7 2:03:07 >
# 3
Thank you so much for your help-
I tried iostat -En and it 'sees' the cdrom but I get the error with 'device not ready', from probe-ide-all it replies "boot cdrom" so its definitely seeing it.
I tried booting off my Solaris 10 and Debian installation disks again and still all I get is
'can't read disk label'
'can't open disk label package' and
'can't open boot device'.
I know its not bad media because it won't read anything -so I think you're right its most likely the optics/mechanics. Ironic really because the cd drive on my XM radio has also just packed in...
So now I'll follow Martin's steps and try a few other drives. Our IT support is giving me a few oldies tomorrow. Any suggestions... or should I just ground myself and get stuck in?
thanks again,
Kate
# 4
A couple or 'corrections' if I may.
There is no such command as probe-ide-all.
IDE devices can only be internal ones and the -all syntax is an OBP syntax to look at external devices.
It shouldn't work. It should not provide usable information.
If you need to review how to work within the OpenBoot environment,
then here is the OBP 4.x Command Reference Manual from Docs.Sun.Com
http://docs.sun.com/app/docs?q=816-1177
Next, your report that "boot cdrom" was returned when you probed the IDE bus ...
... just doesn't make sense.
A command does not produce another command as its output report.
The result of an OBP probe of whatever bus you're examining (not IDE, not SCSI)
should not return another command as its result.
Replace the optical drive in that SunBlade 100.
They were prone to spontaneous failure.
Just replace the drive.
# 5
Thank you for the ref to the OpenBoot environment. Its not a case of reviewing but learning in the first instance. I am a Windows drone and brand new to Sun and slowly getting to grips.
WRT
> Next, your report that "boot cdrom" was returned when
> you probed the IDE bus ...
> ... just doesn't make sense.
> A command does not produce another command as its
> output report.
> The result of an OBP probe of whatever bus you're
> examining (not IDE, not SCSI)
> should not return another command as its result.
- What you say makes perfect sense, yet it did give the response "boot cdrom" - this was the last command I had typed in a previous boot. How peculiar. So why would it repeat that? Not a problem - just a puzzle. I'll go replace that drive then.
thanks again for your input
# 6
So I took out the old drive and noticed there's something rattling around in it - yes it was well and truly dead. The first drive I tried works fine - originally from a Dell I think - its a Lite-on LTR-48246S and I didn't have to do a thing... just switched it in and powered up - now why can't everything be that easy?
thank you to all for your help
