For the life of me I cannot figure out how to interrupt the boot of my Sparc 5 via a serial terminal. I am sending breaks from the terminal (minicom) like crazy during startup yet the system is hell-bent on booting up UNIX like the reliable beast it always has been. I also inserted my Solaris CD, which I thought was bootable but to no avail. The CD is titled Solaris 2.6 Hardware: 3/98 Software.
Below are the startup messages - if I understand correctly I should be able to send a break before the "Boot device" appears in order to get to a > or ok prompt. I've not booted it in 8 years, have forgotten the login and I simply want to wipe and reinstall the OS and I'd appreciate any help. Thanks!
SPARCstation 5, No Keyboard
ROM Rev. 2.15, 192 MB memory installed, Serial #7556283.
Ethernet address 8:0:20:4a:3c:43, Host ID: 80443c43.
Boot device: /iommu/sbus/espdma@5,8400000/esp@5,8800000/sd@3,0 File and args:
SunOS Release 5.5.1 Version Generic [UNIX(R) System V Release 4.0]
Copyright (c) 1983-1996, Sun Microsystems, Inc.
configuring network interfaces: le0.
Hostname: soitgoes
The / file system (/dev/rdsk/c0t3d0s0) is being checked.
/dev/rdsk/c0t3d0s0: 1294 files, 11313 used, 2414 free
/dev/rdsk/c0t3d0s0: (70 frags, 293 blocks, 0.5% fragmentation)
Configuring GAD devices
I seem to remember SPARCStations having separate keyboard and monitor connections on the back of the chassis. The note in red at the start of the output you're seeing is saying that it didn't find a keyboard attached. And, the only way to send a break is probably through that keyboard port.
[LEFT]While a break can be sent via a Sun keyboard, it can also be sent via a terminal connection for a "headless" system, that is, one without a Sun monitor/keyboard. I read a notice from Sun that indicated the break signal may not be received when the terminal hookup does not support full hardware handshaking - that is, when the serial cable does not have all (required) pins connected. So I'm going to have to check out my cable and null modem to make sure they're sufficient.
[/LEFT]
I could ask a number of questions here but firstly let me just say that on a Sun keyboard you can stop the boot process with STOP-A and if you're using a PC keyboard you can stop the boot process with CTRL-BREAK. However, as Don says, the system thinks that it doesn't have a keyboard. How is your minicom terminal physically connected?
---------- Post updated at 02:45 PM ---------- Previous update was at 02:40 PM ----------
Also, read this thread..............
that I was involved in and DukeNuke2 solved it. Read DukeNuke2's post.