Due to numerous special requests, I'm posting this summary in addition to
Michael Crowley's summary entitled "SUMMARY: ARC console, RAID controller on
alphastation 255, dual-boot, firmware upgrades".
Thanks to:
Tom Webster <webster_at_ssdpdc.mdc.com>
Dave Golden <golden_at_falcon.invincible.com>
Alan Rollow <alan_at_nabeth.cxo.dec.com>
Michael Crowely <mcrowley_at_mtholyoke.edu>
Original question:
I'm trying to configure an AlphaStation 255/233 to dual boot both DU 4.0 and
NT, each on their own separate disks.
Installing NT and UNIX individually was no problem, however burning the
Firmware between SRM & ARC to boot either OS is getting old (and I'm
concerned about wearing out the NVRAM) -- Can someone please tell me how I
can boot either OS from within a single console mode? (It doesn't matter to
me which one...)
====================================================================
>From webster_at_ssdpdc.mdc.com Wed Jan 15 23:28:54 1997
<snip>
As far as the firmware goes, it seems DEC decided to save a couple of
bucks on the AS200s and AS255s. Unlike the AS250's, these systems only
have enough NVRAM available to load either the SRM or ARC consoles.
If you read the DEC marketing lit. it just claims tha the systems
can run either NT or DU/VMS (it never says that you can dual boot with
any ease). DEC provides a partial solution on the Firmware CDs (3.7 and
up) that allows you to boot the arc console without reflashing the
NVRAM. There is a file in the AS255 directory on the CD called
"abboot.exe", just have the AS255 use it for the boot file.
That should get your immediate need to boot the ARC console taken care of.
In case you want to be able to boot to the ARC console more often (i.e.
to dual boot NT), I'm attaching the long version that discusses a network
and floppy based method of booting the ARC w/o flashing the NVRAM.
---- snip ----- snip ----- snip ----- snip ----- snip -----
Background:
We recently purchased a number of AlphaStation 255's after having a
demo AlphaStation 250 placed with us. The AlphaStation 250 was
designed to easily boot between Digital UNIX/OpenVMS and Windows NT,
having sufficient NVRAM installed to hold both the SRM console and the
ARC console.
After purchasing our AS255s, we discovered that they were equipped with
sufficient NVRAM to hold either the SRM console firmware OR the ARC
console firmware. I later discovered that this was true of
AlphaStation 200s as well.
Before the appearance of the V3.7 firmware CD, the only way to switch
firmware was to re-flash the NVRAM to the desired type. The V3.7
firmware CD provided firmware images that could be booted from the CD
which would boot the ARC console without re-flashing the NVRAM. Please
refer to the firmware documentation to find the correct files.
This got us half way home, because it allowed us to stop re-flashing
the NVRAM and just leave the SRM console installed (the systems run DU
80%+ of the time). The downside was that it required the operator to
have a copy of the firmware CD on hand and remember the right boot
image to load from the CD.
Solutions:
We arrived at two different, but complementary, solutions for
simplifying the dual boot process and enabling us to keep the physical
count of firmware CDs to a minimum.
1. We configured a number of the AS255s as bootp/tftp servers. These
systems provide the ARC console boot file, abboot.exe or arcboot.exe
depending on your hardware, from the firmware CD as the boot file.
It was unclear in the firmware documentation if this file was
bootable via bootp, but it does work. The user then issues a
"b ewa0" from the SRM console to boot the ARC console. Any bootp/tftp
capable host on the subnet should be able to serve as a boot host.
NOTE: The *.sys version of these files are MOP bootable if you have
VMS or ULTRIX boxes which can act as boot hosts.
2. The second solution was to use Kevin Mocklin's
(mocklin_at_frodo.eng.pko.dec.com) mkbootfirm, under Digital UNIX, to
write a bootable image of the abboot.exe file onto a 1.44mb floppy
(this also works with the arcboot.exe file used for AS200s). Then
when the user needs to boot the ARC console, they just need to place
the floppy in the drive and issue a "b dva0" from the SRM console.
Keven's mkbootfirm utility is available from:
ftp://ftp.digital.com/pub/Digital/Alpha/firmware/utilities/mkbootfirm.tar
The bootp/tftp implementation is faster, but can be problematic for a
number of reasons: (a) if RIS operating system upgrades are being made
available to the system, (b) the network or the boot host(s) are down,
(c) nobody is willing, or able, to provide bootp or bootpgw services on
the desired subnet. Because of this, the floppy, while slower, is a
complementary solution. It has the advantage of not having to rely on
other hosts and the network.
We had hoped to be able to find a quick and easy method of writing the
ARC console booter to a small 'a' partition on some of our three disk
systems, but that answer had eluded us thus far. That would provide
better speed than the bootp/tftp solution, without reliance on the
network and boot hosts.
Outstanding issues:
The only problem that we still have outstanding has to do with clocks:
DU and WinNT seem to have very different ideas about what the current
date is (about a 30 year discrepancy). It appears that one or both OSs
are using an offset from the system hardware clock. Attempting to
reconcile the dates has thus far failed (usually resulting in DU
deciding that the date is invalid and resetting it). Any thoughts or
suggestions would be appreciated.
----- snip ----- snip ----- snip ----- snip ----- snip -----
I hope this all helps,
Tom
====================================================================
The mkbootfirm utility is used for creating a bootable firmware floppy disk
from a Digital UNIX system.
To create a bootable firmware floppy disk using mkbootfirm, you need a
floppy disk that has been low-level formatted. For example, to
low-level format a floppy disk in drive zero, use the command:
fddisk -fmt /dev/rfd0a
mkbootfirm takes one argument, which is the name of the firmware
image to convert to a bootable image. The program sends its output
to STDOUT. The following command will create a bootable firmware
floppy disk for a floppy in drive zero:
./mkbootfirm fwupdate.exe | dd of=/dev/rfd0c bs=64k
where fwupdate.exe is the firmware image that you downloaded for your system.
Kevin Mocklin
Digital Equipment Corp
mocklin_at_frodo.eng.pko.dec.com
========================================================
"Jethro Tull, Harley Davidson, and Dark Beer: Amen." - Cameron Cordova
"Could you fancy me as a pirate bold or a longship Viking warrior with the
old gods on his side?" - JT
Received on Tue Jan 21 1997 - 22:43:27 NZDT