> On Feb 18, 2019, at 11:49 AM, Alan Perry via cctech <cct...@classiccmp.org> > wrote: > > > Is there some trick to making boot floppies for the RS/6000 7043-140 (a > mid-90s PReP architecture machine)? > > I initially tried to install Solaris 2.5.1 on it and created the boot floppy > by dd'ing the image using a SPARCstation (running NetBSD). I dd'ed the image > over, dd'ed it back and verified the SPARCstation could read back what it had > written to the floppy. The RS/6000 loads what is on the floppy, but hangs > transferring control to what it loaded. > > The 7043-140 does not appear on the list of supported systems in the Solaris > 2.5.1 release notes, so, even though 2.5.1 supports PReP and the 7043-140 is > a PReP machine, maybe they aren't compatible, so I tried NetBSD. The 7043-140 > is listed as a supported system. > > The NetBSD boot floppy images are confusing to me. The files are too large to > fit on a 1.44M floppy. I didn't see instructions on how to make boot floppies > out of the .fs files one can download in the install instructions. I went > ahead and tried to dd the part that fits onto a 1.44M floppy and try to boot > that and of course that failed. I have e-mailed the NetBSD prep mailing list > and no response from that. > > The system does boot the AIX install on one of its hard disks, but this is a > recycled system and I don't have usernames/passwords for that install. > > Does anyone here have a suggestion on how to proceed? > > alan > > CAUTION: This email originated from outside SwRI and it may contain > attachments and/or links. Do not open attachments or click on links unless > you recognize the sender and know the content is safe.
Alan, does the machine also have a CD drive? I got a *lot* of help fast from this list last year while resetting root and user passwords on one of those machines by using the first CD of the AIX install set. I guess that won’t help toward solaris but at least you could run AIX. - Mark