I have an alphastation 200/4/166 machine which no longer generates any
video out even in the SRM console. I have no idea how to recover it. I
have tried power cycling it etc.
Details:
Another person quit this department and left behind an alphastation
200/4/166 (machine 'S') with a corrupted disk of OSF 3.0. I have the
only other machine like this in the department (machine 'T') and 'T'
and all other dec machine are running 3.2C. I thought I would get 'S'
useful as an X terminal.
Since its disk was a mess I made an image copy of 'T's disk onto an
external drive and then booted that external drive single user on
'S'. I then did an image copy onto the internal RZ26 of 'S'. I
remembered to tweak the hostname and IP configuration in
/etc/rc.config etc.
When I booted 'S' with the 3.2C clone of 'T' it got roughly as far as
starting the X server and then it just hung. No response to network
activity. Reseting caused it to go into a state where no monitor
sync ever occurred, even when power cycling etc.
By typing blind into it on a power cycle I managed to interrupt the
boot sequence and set the console to the serial line. The machine
does not come up on the net now when I boot it, but the problem is not
sufficiently early for me to see it on the serial console.
The only thing I could think of was that it was a firmware version
thing, and indeed 'T' is running V4.2-3 whereas the unhappy machine
'S' is running X3.7-10895.
I noticed that ftp.digital.com has firmware updates with version 6.8
recommended for alphastation 200 machines. I thought I would try that,
and I have pulled the appropriate file and set up one of my sandpipers
to bootp/tftp serve it.
Unfortunately machine 'S' refuses to boot with bootp - tcpdump shows
it only emitting mop packets, and an explicit
>>> boot -protocols bootp ewa0
just gives endless repitions of:
Trying BOOTP boot.
bootstrap failure
Retrying...
(boot ewa0.0.0.11.0 -flags a)
with no ethernet packets being emitted.
Needless to say, I have no machines capable of running Ultrix/MOP ....
Any suggestions, please??
Richard Black
Received on Mon Oct 19 1998 - 19:02:06 NZDT