SUMMARY: Bad Bootblock or Bad Drive?

From: Tim Evans (tkevans@eplrx7.es.duPont.com)
Date: Wed Feb 03 1993 - 12:52:50 CST


Yesterday, I asked:
>
>I have a Sparc I with its boot drive being a Quantam 105. The
>system reports being unable to read the bootblock, but the prom's
>probe-scsi can still read the disk label. Short of a complete
>reload, is there any way to determine if the drive is still good?
>Thanks.
>
Thanks to the following for replies (and to any others which
come in after this summary is sent):

jaa101@deakin.anu.edu.au (James Ashton)
"Jim Davis" <jdavis@cs.arizona.edu>
Rod Rebello -- CAD Development <titan!rrebello@enuucp.eas.asu.edu>
Geert Jan de Groot <geertj@ica.philips.nl>
Kevin Elphinstone <kevine@vast.unsw.edu.au>
fpb@ittc.wec.com (Frank P. Bresz)
tom_conroy@3Com.COM
mark@deltam.com
sgf@cfm.brown.edu
earl@division.cs.columbia.edu (Earl Smith)
uunet!ext_adm!jmcgrath (John Mc Grath)
Warren Stokes <was@gdwb.vic.gov.au>
Joel Abbott <abbott@ms.uky.edu>
Eckhard.Rueggeberg@ts.go.dlr.de
trinkle@cs.purdue.edu (Daniel Trinkle)
vasey@issi.com
tom@yac.llnl.gov
Keith Pilotti <kfp@quasar.saic.com>
Christian Lawrence <cal@soac.bellcore.com>

Several of you reminded me of the question on this list's FAQ
on Quantom drives. Indeed, giving this one a twist freed the
drive and the system is now booted. Thanks!

Other suggestions involved various combinations of booting from
tape or CD-ROM, mounting the "root" partition from the drive
temporarily and re-running installboot(8), or running format
from the miniroot. These are great suggestions when the drive
in question is spinning, but in my case the drive had not spun
up due to the "stiction" problem.

-- 
Tim Evans                     |    E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co.
tkevans@eplrx7.es.dupont.com  |    Experimental Station
(302) 695-9353/7395           |    P.O. Box 80357
EVANSTK AT A1 AT ESVAX        |    Wilmington, Delaware 19880-0357



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